Going Home
by Warringer
Summary: A Back Home Dark/Mirror AU. The Doranians have invaded Earth and turned all humans into slaves. A hero must return to free Earth and pacify the galaxy. DEAD FIC, REWRITE PENDING!
1. Chapter 1

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Prologue

Harry James Potter grunted as the shock stick hit his side. Having been forced into the role of a slave for now three years forced him to be able to simply shut out the pain he felt from the impact and the electric shock of the stick.

He glared at the Doranian slaver from underneath his mob of unkempt and dirty hair for a moment, before grabbing his cousin Dudley and pulling him along into the waiting shuttle.

Dudley didn't protest like he would have done just three years ago, before the Doranian invasion of Earth.

The invasion had been swift and brutal. First the Doranian force of eleven cruisers had battered any major population center and military installation with asteroids before they had been reinforced by even more cruisers and landing ships.

As far as Harry knew London had been hit five times, making him doubt that much of the wizarding community there had survived there.

For a moment he looked at Dudley. The Invasion had made the Dursleys forget about their hatred against wizards for a time and Harry had watched the telly with them, wanting to know what the government or anyone else would do against it.

And Vernon had actually ordered Harry to get his wand in case the aliens would come to Privet Drive, so that he would defend them all. It had been surreal for Harry.

Than the invasion force landed and one of the landing ships touched down in Little Whinging. The Doranian forces had swept through the town like locusts and those they didn't kill on sight, they herded together.

Harry had in fact tried to use a 'Reducto' on them, but a stray plasma beam had hit his wand hand and not only burned the wand to cinder, but also burning his hand rendering it pretty much useless.

He could still remember how the Doranians had singled out several of the older people from the crowd they had herded together next to a landing ship. They had than proceeded to dismember and kill them in rather cruel fashions. Two of them had been Vernon and Petunia.

Even if Harry hadn't liked his aunt and uncle, this was not a death he would have wished them. Not even Tom would have deserved being cut open like a pig before being forced to watch how a giant cat ripped the still beating heart from the body, like Vernon.

It had been a example to the other people. Resisting was a bad idea any everyone who resisted to die like one of these people. Dudley hadn't been in any shape to resist anyway. Being forced to watch his parents being killed like that would have made everyone go into shock. The shock still effected him to this day, as he had lost his voice at that day.

After being herded into the landing ship more than a thousand people of all ages were ferried off the planet and to the next Doranian slave procession center.

Harry shook his head clear and breathed in deep as the bulkhead to the slave compartment was smalled shut, the electric noise of the locks being shut and the vacuum seals closing.

The smell of the slave compartment was bad, but after living three years in places like this had hardened Harry. He didn't knew if he should thank his aunt and uncle next time he saw them for making him able to keep himself sane and mentally active, where Dudley had pretty much been broken.

He looked at Dudley, who looked at him like a pet or like a kid that didn't know what to do. Harry doubted that he would ever get used to that look.

"Go sit down somewhere," he told his cousin, watching how he was dropping to the floor where he had stood, sitting down heavily.

Harry closed his eyes again and grit his teeth. The Doranian slavers had done good work on his cousin and many of their follow slaves they had meet over the last three years.

He looked up from Dudley again and glanced around in the slave compartment. It wasn't very large, but still larger than Privet Drive 4. He noted a group of Nomads in one corner, one of them seemed to dress the wound of a second one, while the others tried to groom their fur.

In another corner was a whole group of beings Harry had gotten to know as being one of the most sought after slaves of the Doranians, Shin'bi. Their clothes were mostly intact and the way they debated with each other told Harry that they were most likely just captured.

"You're a Tommy, aren't you?" he heard a human voice with a very noticeable German accent speaking up behind him.

That Dudley had done nothing to alert Harry wasn't very surprising, Harry noted and slowly turned around to see a taller man standing there. He obviously was one of the better feed follow slaves and the muscles showed him that he most likely worked in a mine.

And the man appeared to be human. Sure there were several races that looked human, but Harry doubted that they either spoke English, had a German accent or used the word 'Tommy'.

"I guess so," Harry replied and shook his head, deciding that he should sit down as well.

The man cursed in several rather colorful words Harry guessed to be German.

"The Vree got you too?"

Harry snorted as he leaned against a bulkhead and slid down to the ground. Sure the Vree were known to make good money with slaves, but he doubted they would have been able to keep a wizard down after teleporting him on their ship.

"No," he said and shook his head, before placing it against the bulkhead." Doranians."

The man narrowed his eyes.

"Doranians? How?"

Harry looked at the man again. As he had been abducted by the Vree before the Invasion, he couldn't know.

"They invaded three years ago," he said with a sigh." Nuked just about everyone on Earth. Russians and Americans tried to nuke them in return, but it didn't work."

The man blinked and sat down next to Harry.

"Nuked?" he asked and Harry noted the wonder in his voice." What is 'nuked'?"

Harry looked at the man. He appeared to be in his late thirties and yet he didn't know what a nuke was?

"Nuclear Weapons ring a bell?" he wondered, observing the man and his blank face.

"No sorry," the man said after a while, shaking his head.

"Atomic Weapons?" he tried again.

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Like the ones from these American Pulp novels or Buck Rodgers?"

Now it was Harrys turn to raise an eyebrow.

"When have you been abducted by the Vree," he finally asked after a few moments of silence.

"March 23rd 1932."

Harry stared at the man for a moment and than shoo his head, before looking at his wristwatch, the only thing he still owned. The mechanical watch was a gift from Arthur Weasly and was charmed to always show the correct time as well as the correct date.

"We have the 2nd July 1998," he said slowly and looked at the mans face.

Again he head a sting of colorful curses, this time even going as far as meshing in several of alien origin like Centauri, Doranian or Jurian.

After about five minutes, the man calmed down and massaged his temples. Than he looked at Harry.

"Joachim von Bismark," he introduced himself and held up his hand, inviting Harry to shake it.

Harry chuckled a little and grabbed the hand shaking it.

"Harry James Potter."


	2. Chapter 2

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 1

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 10th August 1260 (estimated)

Its been four weeks since I have gone into the past with Babylon 4 and there are still no signs of the Minbari or even Vorlons.

The Station has appeared in a high orbit around a massive gas giant and it seems that it is stable as far as I can tell. I have been forced to activate the experimental Artificial Intelligence that should have taken over control over the station. I can't control a station this large on my own.

I'm getting a little impatient, but its only a matter of time until the Vorlons and the Minbari arrive.

I hope...

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 14th August 1260 (estimated)

I did have a visitor today...

I have absolutely no idea how he got on the station without Jack, that is the name of the AI, informing me.

The being introduced himself as Lorien. And he has talked with me.

Now I know why there are no Vorlons and Minbari coming, at least according to what he said. I don't have any idea what exactly he said, as he talked about quantum physics, but the gist of it is that Babylon 4 and I are 'quantum copies' that have been transferred into a parallel universe during the transfer into the past.

My 'original' has traveled safely into the past and I'm stuck here, in another universe with no idea what to do.

I can't even leave this system as there seems to be no jumpgate anywhere near. And even if there was, I doubt that I would be able to get far with just a shuttle.

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 16th August 1260 (estimated)

I made a decision...

I have ordered Jack to put the entire station on standby, powering down all systems and pump the atmosphere into the tanks to depressurize the station. Than he will start a radio and tachyon beacon. Maybe it will be heard by someone.

I am going to enter an emergency cryo chamber in one of the Med Bays.

I hope someone finds us sometime...

There was a dry chuckle coming from another corner.

Harry and von Bismark turned their head to look at another human, or near human at the very least, who was looking directly at them. By the looks of it the human was female, and in similarly ragged clothing. Once those clothes might have been a uniform, but now it wasn't much more than what most Doranian slaves were wearing, through it did look like the woman had taken sowhat care of them.

The woman might have looked attractive, but that was at least forty years in the past, as she looked like she was in her sixties.

"1998, eh?" she asked as she slowly walked over to them.

Harry looked at her as she slowly sunk back down to the ground to sit by them. He winced slightly as he heard some of her bones creak. The woman winced as well and grunted as she settled herself on the ground, muttering something about micro-gravity and youth.

"I doubt my watch is going wrong," he said and sighed.

The woman grunted.

"Elenor McPherson, formerly Earth Force," she introduced herself." And I think I'm in the wrong time, just like Herr von Bismark here."

Next to Harry, von Bismark raised an eyebrow.

"Wrong time?"

She shrugged.

"Most likely even the wrong universe..."

Harry shook his head. He was willing to believe just about everything right now. He was a wizard, able to do magic, had survived an alien invasion, been forced into slavery by said aliens and now he was meeting a man from before World War II and a woman that was from another universe.

Next he knew they would be rescued by Luke Skywalker and brought to a rebel space station or something...

"And that would be?"

She sighed.

"I'm from the year 2210. I used to be a crew member of the _EAS Kubayashi Maru_. I have no idea what exactly happened, but the ship was attacked and raided by Doranian slavers. So... Here I am..."

Harry snorted. It was hard to forget that one Star Trek movie, especially since it was the first science fiction movie he had ever watched.

Von Bismark on the other hand looked at her with interest.

"A space ship?" he wondered out loud." Do you know how to fly one?"

"Hah," Elenor made and shook her head a little." I might know how to pilot an Earth Force shuttle, but I doubt that this ship got the controls of an Earth Force shuttle. Besides I have piloted my last shuttle thirty five years ago."

Von Bismark leaned back at the bulkhead and closed his eyes for a moment.

Harry looked at him and than at Elenor, who sighed.

"How old are you?" she wondered as she looked at Harry.

"Eighteen..." he answered truthfully and heard Elenor breathe in sharply before getting a rather loud 'fuck' from her.

"Eighteen?" she asked and looked at him.

Harry nodded.

"The cats got kids younger than me during the invasion."

Elenor grit her teeth and Harry's glance wandered away from her for a moment. His eyes fell on the group of Shin'bi. They had stopped arguing with each other and were looking towards them, through he guessed that they were mostly looking at von Bismark.

After a moment one of the Shin'bi slowly walked towards them and looked at von Bismark. After a moment she, at least Harry assumed that the Shin'bi was female, bowed at them.

"We are willing to help you with the break," she said after a moment.

Von Bismark opened his eyes and smirked. He looked back at Elenor.

"Maybe you can learn how to fly this ship."

"Bloody hell."

Hermione Garnger ducked her head behind a low crate as red and yellow plasma bolts raced over her head. Some of them hit the crate, sending bits and pieces of burned and burning plastic through the air.

No, this was not one of her better plans. Who could have known that the invaders had reinforced the security after the last raid?

"Fire in the HOLE!" someone screamed from the size and Hermione looked up and over the crate for a moment.

Another plasma bolt nearly scalped her as it flew over her head yet again. Cursing again she ducked behind the crate again, scowling herself for making such a rookie mistake.

Over the sound of the plasma bolts, they sounded eerily like blaster shots from Star Wars to her ears, she could hear the swooshing sound of a missile launched from a Carl Gustav streaking down range, followed by the large explosion that silenced the plasma fire for a few moments.

There was a short silence and she jumped up from behind her cover, pointing her wand downrange.

"Reducto!" she called out sending the curse downrange, followed by the three other wizards in the raid squad, who send their own curses downrange.

Another Carl Gustav missile streaked downrange, detonating as it hit a Doranian in heavy powered armor. Another sound mixed into the explosion, that of tracks on asphalt.

"About damned time," Hermione muttered under her breath as a Warrior ISV rounded the corner and its small turret turned into the direction of the Doranian warriors.

"Reducto!" she called out again, knocking over a Doranian medium powered armor.

She ducked behind the crate again as the 30 mm autocannon of the Warrior opened fire. She breathed in deep and reached for the salvaged and modified Doranian plasma rifle, easy the size of a L2 machine gun, but charmed with featherweight for easier handling.. For a moment she closed her eyes as she put her wand into its quickdraw holster and jumped up again, leveling the rifle downrange and opening fire together with the others of the raid squad.

Several more Carl Gustav missiles streaked past them and two minutes later nothing alien was standing anymore downrange.

Silence, save for the sound of a motor, descended onto the field of battle and Hermione turned towards the Warrior. The hatch opened up and a head popped out of it.

"Did they get them?" she asked out loud.

"A complete load! And a new goodie for Professor Hawking!"

Hermione smiled grimly and nodded.

"Everyone get in!"

The rear hatch of the Warrior opened up and the look into the interior of the tracked ISV showed that the Plasma Rifles weren't the only things that had been modified by the Joint Resistance made up from what had remained from the Wizarding World, the British Army, the British government and whatever civilians were lucky to escape the Invasion.

Larger from the inside than from the outside the Warrior was able to carry two dozen people and freight, making it perfect for fast raids of Doranian installations like this one.

Instead of entering the rear hatch of the Warrior, Herminone climbed on top of the tracked vehicle and placed her hand on the turret hatch. Hearing the rear hatch closing, she smirked slightly. It had been a stroke of genius to charm an entire tank as a portkey.

"Cassiopeia," she called out and disappeared with the Warrior.

Several hundred kilometers north of the Doranian Armory in Essex, the Warrior appeared in the center of the large encampment that surrounded Hogwarts Castle and stretched between the shores of the lake, Hogsmade and the Forbidden Forrest.

The entire area had been placed under a Fidelius Charm in the aftermath of the Invasion and as Dumbledore had followed 'Operation Atlantis', something he had planned during the Battle for Britain in the Second World War, together with Winston Churchill and the members of the muggle and magical governments of that time.

'Operation Atlantis' had been a fall back plan should Germany manage to invade the British Isles and Grindelwald succeed in helping Hitler. It would have enabled the British Governments to remain on the islands and help along the Resistance against the occupation.

Now it was in effect as the result of an alien invasion.

"Did you get them?" the familiar voice of Sirius Black asked as he approached the Warrior.

Hermione smiled lightly.

"I haven't looked yet, but," she patted the hatch of the ISV," Carpenter says that we got a full load of Plasma Rifles and something for the Professor."

Sirius chuckled.

"Last time you managed to get a fusion rector. What will it be this time?"

Hermione shrugged.


	3. Chapter 3

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 2

The Great Hall of Hogwarts was buzzing with activity. Even through Earth had been invaded and taken over by sentient cats from outer space, Hogwarts tried to follow through with the maxim of 'Business as usual'. And as such classes were still held, through by now only those who had managed to get out of dodge were part of those teaching or being taught.

But by now the children that were taught weren't only magical. Many of the families of 'muggle worn' wizards and witches had been able to flee to Hogwarts and Hogsmade, just as well as families of the military and the governments.

Likewise the staff of Hogwarts had been expanded with a good number of the faculties of Oxford, Cambridge, Lakehurst and other places. Not all of them were teaching and using the ever changing and large rooms of the massive castle for their studies of alien technology and any way that could be used to excel the alien invaders from the planet.

Hermione looked over the expanded Great Hall as she sat down at one of the tables with her friends and comrades in arms. She nodded with a smile towards where Professor Hawking was directing his wheelchair through the maze of tables. It had been fortunate that he had been in Edinburgh during the invasion and 'Operation Atlantis' had included men like him to be evacuated to Hogwarts. Likewise it was good to know that he could at least speak sowhat normal again and could take part in conversations without having to relay on his laptop.

Next to her Ron Weasley was already digging into his meal and shook his head. It seemed that his appetite had grown since the invasion, but to herself she admitted that it was most likely due to the lack of food during the first winter after the invasion, where no one had much to eat, if at all. Even today food was rationed to preserve it for bad times. Or rather worse times.

"I heard that Doktor Andreyasn and Ron's father are close to finishing that paraport thing of theirs," Jack Crunser, the driver of her teams Warrior said after a moment.

"Teraport device," Hermione corrected more automatically than intentionally as she looked down at the nice Wiener Schnitzel in front of her, complete with chips. Gone where the days when the dinner was a feast in all but name. At least they were able to get what they wanted within reason, through it had the look and feel of cantina food.

Crunser rolled his eyes as he bit down on his hamburger and chewed.

"Whatever," he said between bites." Maybe you'd get under the armor during 'porting once we get it installed."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She was the best and fastest witch in their team when it came to enchanting portkeys. She could get one done in less then ten seconds, but she needed to stay outside of the Warrior to enchant it.

"I heard they need to tie a wizard into an electrical chair for it to work," Ron said and blinked, looking at Hermione." Whats and electrical chair?"

Hermione pushed a slice of her Schnitzel into her mouth and chewed slowly so that she didn't need to answer Ron.

"A chair that gives you a nicely curled haircut after it was turned on," Crunser noted with a grin.

"Oh?" Ron made and looked at Hermione." So thats how muggles do that with their hair."

Hermione snorted and the Schitzel nearly went down the wrong pipe. Coughing she kicked Crunsers shin and gave him a glare.

"Ow," the twenty two year old driver made and reached down to rub the offended shin." Hey, it's true, isn't it? Only side effect would be that you are very dead after using it."

Ron dropped his food back on the dish and stared at Crunser, which got the driver another glare from Hermione, while the others of the team snickered.

"Ron, don't take everything for face value."

Hermione had finally swallowed correctly and wanted to respond to the 'Teraport device', a sort of 'technomgaical' portkey, as a strangely loud female voice interrupted the dinner.

The suddenness of the voice and its volume, draw the glances of everyone present towards the staff table, where they could see Professor Sibyll Trelawney had risen up from her seat. Those sitting closer to the staff table could see that her eyes were glazed over, while she held a fork with a chicken drumstick on it into the air, waiving it around.

"The lost hero will return," she proclaimed in a singsong voice," Descending from the heavens in a green ark, advised by the Minbari not of the Minbari, the hiding dragon, the recent ancient and the wolven man of faith, he will free the lands from oppression. Handling the heretics of man, he will be proclaimed as ruler of man, denying it."

Lost Hero? Hermione mouthed as she stared at Ron who stared at her.

"Uniting men, he will stride among the stars, bringing peace and freedom through the sword. Long live the hero."

Ron and Hermione continued to look at each other while most stared at Sibyll, who now blinked and took down the hand with her fork and blushed a little.

"oops..."

"Harry," Ron and Hermione said at the same time before their look returned towards Sibyll.

The airlock to the slave compartment depressurized and Harry breathed in deep. It was now or never.

He glanced over to the others that were part of this try to break out. Six Doranians. From what he had seen, when he had seen them, they were incredible hand to hand fighters. No wonder most Doranians that owned one broke them completely to use as bodyguards, even going as far as implanting chips that removed any will from their slaves. A technological Imperio...

The next glance went towards von Bismark, the grandchild of the famous Otto von Bismark. Harry didn't know what to think of the man. He had never seen him fight and the man was nobility. For a moment the fact that he belonged to a Preussian family entered his mind, as well as that Preussia used to be a militaristic nation. He would have to wait and see what von Bismark would do.

And than there was McPherson. Other than von Bismark, Harry knew her to be military. Well at least she used to be military before the Doranians took over her ship and made her a slave. And it was more than thirty years ago.

The airlock hissed and slowly opened, revealing a Doranian with a shock stick behind it. Time for action.

With a wordless scream he saw how von Bismark launched himself at the Doranian as the airlock opened fully to show two other cats. One of the Shin'bi was jumping at the second cat, leaving the third to the rest of the group. But only two people could fit through the airlock.

Harry reacted on an old instinct, nearly forgotten in the three years of slavery, as he saw the third Doranian reaching for the remote that would turn on their shock collars. His right hand shot up as if he was holding a wand. The heavily scarred fist pointed at the head of the Doranian as he yelled a curse he thought he would never again use.

"Reducto!"

That something happened at all was a great surprise to Harry. He had never been very good at wandless magic and the ball of energy heading towards the head of the Doranian and turning it into a spray of blood, bones and gray matter was not something he had expected.

By now von Bismark had broken his Doranians hand and grabbed his shock stick to ram it between his legs, while the Shin'bi had turned her Doranians face into a warzone.

Harry still stood there, staring at the headless corpse of the Doranian, his arm still stretched out, pointing at where the Doranians head was still raining some blue-green blood on the corridor.

"Mahoutsukai," one of the other Shin'bi said out loud as he in turn looked at Harry.

"What the hell was that?" came from McPherson.

Harry swallowed and slowly lowered his arm. Von Bismarks head had turned towards him and than shook his head.

"We can worry about that later. First we need to take care of the other slavers."

Harry looked back at the Shin'bi who had spoken. He had learned enough Intercosmo to understand the dragonoid.

"He can't be a mahoutsukai," another of the Shin'bi said, low but audible to Harry." He's not Shin'bi."

The first one looked at the other and shook his head.

"He is without a doubt."

"Uhm, hello?" McPherson said after a while as she walked out of the slave compartment after Von Bismark and the Shin'bi female." We need to get going..."

"Right," Harry rapidly added," First taking over the ship, than worrying."

It appeared that there were not many who had gotten the short debate between the two Shin'bi and Harry was a little concerned about the lack of reaction to his magic from the humanoid dragons. Von Bismark had been bus with the Doranian to notice very much, while McPherson had reacted like any muggle should react around magic.

There was another double of screams coming from further down a corridor followed by sounds of flesh and metal pounding into flesh. He could even hear one or two breaking bones.

"We found the bridge!" von Bismark called out towards them as the other Shin'bi moved towards the other end of the corridor.

The shuttle wasn't very large and from what Harry had seen on others he didn't think that they had to deal with more than five Doranians, all who have been taken care of. He stepped over the broken bodies of the last two cats, one of them having a broken neck, while the other twitched slightly, while his head was still smoking slightly from signed fur and what was left of his skin.

Harry absentmindedly noted that the burnt skin smelled a little like bacon.

"Your turn, Elenor," von Bismark said after the woman had entered the bridge.

She nodded and looked at the controls of the shuttle. Von Bismark on the other hand was looking straight at Harry, just as his Shin'bi companion, Haruka did.

"Okay, how did you turn that head into fine mist?"

"Mahou," the voice of the Shin'bi from earlier said from behind him.

Von Bismark's look went towards him for a moment and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Magic?"

So that was it what that word meant, Harry noted for a moment. He might as well tell them about being a wizard. If he was still able to do magic, he needed to retrain himself. One never knew if it could come in handy anytime soon. Besides the Ministry could hardly send him to Azkaban now, could it?

"You can't expect me to..."

Harry interrupted von Bismark.

"He is right," he said after drawing in a deep breath." I'm a wizard."

Von Bismarks eyes turned back to Harry, while his facial expression turned to confusion.

"What?"

"I can do magic. Through not the 'pulling a rabbit out of a hat' kind. More like the 'turn someone into a frog' kind."

"Why didn't you use it earlier."

Harry's face turned slightly red and his hand moved to scratch the back of his head.

"I didn't believe I could use it after my wand got destroyed by..."

"Uh oh..."

This pair of words brought Harry's explanation to a grinding halt as every eyes focussed on McPherson. The old pilot had her eyes glued on the large cockpit window and the massive light gray shape that hung in front of it.

"The _Maru_," she noted and swallowed." But I think the Holly Roger is kind of new..."

"Bloody Hell..."

Harry's words expressed the thoughts of just about everyone else in the tiny bridge of the shuttle.

Once upon a time, Alexander Mellings used to be normal kid, growing up in Leeds, United Kingdom, Earth. As he had his eleventh birthday, he found out that he was a wizard. And that he had been selected to go to one of the greatest Wizarding schools of Europe, Hogwarts.

Being eleven years old, and growing up in a place that rapidly went down when it came to employment during the seventies, his parents had been very fast to say yes to him going to that school, especially after he had turned his push doggy into a real doggy.

Time at Hogwarts had been great. One of the greatest times he could imagine. And the pranks he witnessed from the Marauders, who where his upperclassmen by three years, made it even greater. After his OWLs, life threw a cricket bat between his legs and he ended up in the Forbidden Forrest at the wrong time.

Full moon in combination with a Death Eater attack at another place had lead to Alexander being bitten by a were wolf. The were wolf let Alexander live and the Aurors being busy to deal with the Death Eaters had let him get away, changing Alexanders life again.

Now having been cursed to be a were wolf, he was forced to leave the school and the wizarding world was not known for allowing were wolfs to work for them. And with being a known were wolf, he had to reign himself in. So he moved back to his parents in Leeds.

After several years of getting used to be a were wolf and hiding it out in a reinforced cellar every full moon, Alexander managed to get a job in Nottingham, by a small company named 'Games Workshop', known for creating and selling role playing games and miniature wargames.

Here his knowledge of magic and magical creatures had led him to live a very productive corporate life and eventually he managed to secure a job as one of the lead designers when it came to the 'Warhammer' line of games. He even managed to work a part of his were wolf curse into the Space Wolf Space Marines.

With doing his job extremely well, no one really cared that he took a vacation every few weeks for three days.

Than in 1995 the Doranians appeared above Earth and battered the planet into submission with kinetical strikes. Alexander was caught and shipped off world as a slave with several hundred thousand others.

Eventually he ended up in the not very gentle care of a female Zatarian pirate, Ani Zalak. One year after the invasion Zalak's ship, the _Kobajashi_ _Maru,_ crossed a moons orbit and the radiation from the moon reacted with Alexanders curse.

It cost the lives of twenty other pirates before he was put down, several dozen plasma flash wounds closing.

After reverting back to human, Alexander was questioned by Zalak. Needless to say that he sung like a bird. Zalak ended up researching the were wolf curse and its possibilities.

After a few weeks she found a way to trigger the transformation and turn Alexander into a fully transformed were wolf without having to be close to a moon.

Creating a special collar, she was able to trap Alexander into the were wolf form nearly permanently, through she had more in mind for him. Being the daughter of the infamous Cycler Zalak, she knew his work to create a mindless berserker very well.

So, she stripped Alexander of any memory that she deemed to be related to his personality, leaving out factual memories like being able to drive a car, using a type writer or the various Warhammer Codexes of fictional work, leaving a nearly mindless, but highly intelligent predator.

From there she used her new 'pet' to infect five other human slaves she acquired through various means, likwise turning them into these mindless berserkers she liked to use to raid a ship, station or even small colonies.

Over time she even used cybernetic implants to make her 'pets' more effective. Cognitive implants that improves sight, smell, hearing and even a link between them to create a highly effective pack of predators.

She never knew that it would be her end one day.

Ani Zalak smirked to herself as she looked at the hull of the Doranian shuttle craft that slowly hovered into the great space between the main body and the engineering section of her ship.

Long ago her father had bought this ship of the Doranians as a birthday gift. Of course she had had to run it through a nearly complete overhaul, adding gravity, shields and a slipstream drive to the warship. That was all she had to add however, save for some smaller things, as the ship appeared to have been build by a race that knew how to hurt others. The weapons were extremely powerful and even without shields it could take much punishment.

And that it had an acceleration that put many ships of a comparable Quantum 2 tech level to shame was an added bonus. As was a completely new FTL drive that utilized another dimension to move from point A to point B. Not that she ever intended to sell it to anyone. It was just too perfect to drop on top of a target and raid it.

"Is it really necessary to use them?" she heard her first in command say as he glanced at the six wolf like predators that growled at him, ready to tear him apart at the order of their mistress.

Zalak chuckles dangerously.

"Its been some time since they had decent Doranian," she noted." We are only interested in the slaves. I heard they got Shin'bi aboard and those will get us a good price on Jurai."

Her second in command swallowed and his eyes once again were drawn to the six beasts. He would never get used to them. And once he had managed to get enough money out of this gig, he would settle down somewhere without any large predators.

Harry swallowed as he heard the docking clamps of the large vessels gripping down on the hull of the shuttle and looked at von Bismark. By now von Bismark had been able to get hold on the single weapons locker on the entire shuttle and opened it, bringing three Doranian Plasma Rifles out into the open. Each had to be easily the size of a MaDeuce and Harry was willing to bet that it weightened as much. And von Bismark was handling it as if it was a normal rifle.

Von Bismark looked at Harry.

"Are you able to do that magic stuff again?" he wondered and Harry swallowed.

"I guess," he said after a moment.

"You can do some sort of shield?"

"Uhm..." Harry said and swallowed again." Yes..."

Von Bismark nodded and looked towards the docking airlock, where a plasma lance seemed to now eat itself through the material.

"You come with us than. Hikaru, Saryo, take the other rifles and follow us. McPherson, you remain here and try to get us away."

"Sure," the pilot said wryly." We'll just die when they get through the lock and we break away instead of being gunned down. Vacuum sucks..."

Harry cast a glare at her and breathed in as he followed von Bismark and the Shin'bi. There was little in the way to hide behind in the corridor that connected the bridge of the shuttle with the docking airlock and so von Bismark and the two Shin'bi crotched down, while the other four dragonoids prepared to launch themselves through the air and at the attackers.

On the airlock the circle of glowing white metal slowly closed and Harry breathed in deep. Slowly he pulled up his arm. Not knowing what he should do else, he opened his heavily scarred right hand, thanking god that the serve plasma burns had destroyed just about any pain nerves as one or two of the scars opened up and leaked blood.

"Pretago!" he yelled and again he was surprised to see how the familiar shield charm burst out from his hand, forming a translucent film through the corridor.

At the same moment, the airlock clanged into the corridor and Harry half expected Stormtroopers to bust through the opening, followed by Darth Vader.

He certainly didn't expect were wolfs.

"Oh bloody hell..."

The human mind is a wonderful thing. It can do many things even the most advanced computer can't do. It can delude itself, it can create imagination and whole secondary personalities.

This is what happened in the mind of the mindless were wolf once known as Alexander Mellings. Most of his memories were gone, as was his personality. But that didn't mean that his subconsciousness wasn't active. Trying to become independent again and less willing to spend time trapped as a were wolf, the subconsciousness of the man once known as Alexander Mellings looks for a way out. Just like the magic trapped and integrated into his body during the nearly two years of constantly being a were wolf.

He snarled as he was the first to jump through the still glowing circle of hot metal, willing and quite able to tear through just about any resistance on the other side, even heavy powered armor. His look swept through the room before getting locked onto the face of a single about eighteen year old young men in ratty clothing.

Memories that had not been removed sprung up in the nearly empty mind of the beast he was currently. The look of the young mans face, the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead, the green eyes and the outstretched hand, just as the translucent magical shield presented itself to the mind and his subconsciousness latched onto the memory, as it as the first real thought since the mind was nearly wiped clean two years ago.

The beast stopped and with it, so did its brethren. The beasts mind began to work, its subconsciousness desperately looking around to find anything that looked like a decent memory. And it discovered several memories that could, if properly adjusted, be used as memories to create a new personality. One that would be able to be free.

At the same time, the subconsciousness began to access the neural link to the other beasts. Normally used to better be able to coordinate their attacks, the link began to burst with activity as the subconsciousnesses of the beasts of all things exchanged informations and thoughts.

By now magic began to react to the newly created personality. Wrapping magic around itself and its brethren the beast changed its were wolf curse through sheer accumulated magic that now found a way to be used for something, anything.

Outside of the raging mind of the new personality, Harry Potter stared at the display in front of him, like just about everyone from either side, be it former slave or pirates.

Harry had seen Remus Lupin transform once, but this was something else. He could feel powerful magic being released and wrapped around the six were wolfs as they began to change to a more human form. But not in the way he was used to. None of the wolfs lost much of their height or muscle mass, while most of the fur retracted into the body, still leaving some fur out. Their faces changed to human, but the fangs and the yellow eyes of the wolven forms still remained.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" the first of the group screamed out.

The massive hand of one of the part wolfs reached for the massive shock collar around his neck and ripped it off like it was made of thin paper, throwing it through the room.

"FOR RUSS AND THE WOLFEN TIME!" screamed another.

Five of the six turned their massive bodies around, while the first one stared at Harry. It was not an evil stare, it was more one of wonder and if he had just seen Jesus or something along those lines. Harry on the other hand felt strangely inadequate as he stared back at the massive, hairy and very naked man.

"For you, my Emperor," the man said and there was no mistake to be made who he addressed as he still looked at Harry.

Harry just repeated himself as the giant of a man turned around and the screaming of pain and dismemberment started on the pirates side of the airlock.

"Oh, bloody hell!"


	4. Chapter 4

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 3

Tom Marvolo Riddle, more commonly known as 'I am Lord Voldemort', 'You Know Who', 'He Who Must Not Be Named' or recently 'That Bloody Traitor To Mankind', scratched what passed as his chin, considering his options.

He had been very lucky that he had managed to get the full support of the Dementors and with them been able to take over Azkaban as a hide out directly following the Invasion of the Doranian. Hiding the place under a Fidelius, just like Dumbledore had done with Hogwarts, he managed to elude the Doranians.

Working with them, was another stroke of genius. Sure they were as much, maybe even less, worth as muggles, but he had to acknowledge their capabilities. They had pretty wiped out the entire government of the Wizarding World and most of the muggle world in less than a day after all. And using the muggles as slaves was just about the same he had intended to do with them anyway.

Now he didn't have to worry much about the muggles, if there wasn't Hogwarts and 'Operation Atlantis' as the old man called it. But at the same time, 'Operation Atlantis' was the only reason why the Invaders even considered working with him and let him and his cronies do as they liked. Killing, maiming and the like, while making sure to have at least a certain impact in 'Operation Atlantis' and other pockets of resistence.

Not only that, Voldemort was still following his own plans. He might had been forced to adapt them. No trying to get to know a certain prophecy, the Ministry was destroyed after all, for one thing. Another thing was to learn how the Doranians were doing things.

He hated to admit it, but their technology, their muggle ways were more powerful than most magic. Magic wasn't able to create whole starships and move among the stars after all to enslave other lesser forms of life. Their weapons, especially the one that had totally destroyed London, was another thing.

He looked at the letter in his hands. Snape was still doing a good job of spying at the Headmaster and notifying him about certain operations of the resistance.

And now he had a full prophecy for him.

"The lost hero will return," he read out loud, ignoring the screams of a dying muggle somewhere close by," Descending from the heavens in a green ark, advised by the Minbari not of the Minbari, the hiding dragon, the recent ancient and the wolven man of faith, he will free the lands from oppression. Handling the heretics of man, he will be proclaimed as ruler of man, denying it. Uniting men, he will stride among the stars, bringing peace and freedom through the sword. Long live the hero."

He let the sheet of paper drop down and looked out of the window in the office that used to belong to the old director of the former prison.

He had a sneaking suspicion who this 'lost hero' happened to be.

"Potter..." he said, his voice dripping with scorn." Yet another damn prophecy about you..."

He leaned back and closed his eyes.

But there was still the other prophecy about. The one involving Potter and himself.

Voldemort didn't knew that there were prophecies being made about someone before the previous was resolved. This one obviously was.

On the other hand...

Voldemort had tried to find out if Potter had been taken of planet and sold as a slave and than buy him, but that had proven to be hard. Maybe he might be able to find him later.

What if he killed Potter?

Was this particular prophecy void?

Or maybe the prophecy was concerning himself?

He smirked. Without a doubt he knew that he would be the one who would kill Potter. He was stronger and had much more experience using magic. He also doubted that Potter had much time to practice magic while being a slave.

He scratched was passed as his chin again.

Where could he get a 'green arc'? And what was a Minbari?

"Everybody wants to rule the world..."

Colonel Marcus Parker sighed as he looked out of his seat and down on the scorched landscape. A shudder run down his neck as he remembered the time he had been here last.

The Huey passed a hill top and allowed him to have a good look at the partly glassed landscape. Nine Years back this used to be the small sleepy town of Cascade Falls. Than President Bush had been forced to drop a nuke to keep up the appearance of a working Strategic Defense Initiative.

Parker breathed in deep. Cascade Falls lay silent in front of them on their way towards Fort Teller.

Unbidden the images of a destroyed city Seattle from two different times came to him.

One had been nine years ago when he had helped push the Soviets back and deny the Chinese the ability to land their own invasion troops and just barely preventing another Cascade Falls.

The second time had been just weeks after the Doranian Invasion. The city that had been reconstructed from the ashes of the Third World War, had been destroyed again. This time completely.

"Ten minutes Colonel."

He shook his head as the Huey passed Cascade Falls, the Geiger Counter just barely ticking anymore, not like back than, just after the nuke had hit. Somewhere down there was the wreckage of an Abrams containing the remains of Captain Mark Bannon.

Somewhere behind these hills and mountains was Fort Teller and with it everything that remained from the United States.

The Doranians didn't care very much about the place. Too many mountains and most of the base had been destroyed during 'First Impact'. The deep bunkers that used to contain the failed SDI project were largely untouched and Cascade Fall close by. As far as Parker knew, they didn't like radioactivity. Humans could take more than they could.

Another reason was that Area 51 had outsourced much of its research to Fort Teller. That meant just about everything from the crash of a small Vree saucer in Roswell.

"One minute."

Parker looked up and out of the window of the Huey. He could see the number of rather crude plasma weapons that were placed in the perimeter of Fort Teller, moving based on their targeting computers, trailing every Doranian craft that crossed their line of sight, ready to shoot at them.

Parker didn't think that they would do much damage, but they were only the last line of defense. Modified nuclear armed missiles were the first line of defense for Fort Teller at the moment, through from what he had heard, the egg heads were close to cracking the secrets of the Vree shields and than it was only a matter of month before Fort Teller had its own shield. He was just glad that they had already made good work of the Vree reactors.

The Huey closed to one of the landing pads, one with a Humvee close by.

Parker sighed again. Time to meet up with General Sawyer again.

Harry didn't know whether or not be horrified about what the werewolfs were doing with the crew of the pirate ship McPherson had identified as _EAS Kobojashi Maru_. Through he was a little fuzzy about if these six 'werewolfs' were even werewolfs anymore. Harry had literally felt how magic had rolled of the first to change and the other had been influenced by his magic.

Now they were following the screams of pain and dismemberments, as well as here and there a scream of 'For The Emperor', 'For Russ and the Wolfen Time' and 'Die, Heretic'. The path of dismemberment seemed to split up as the six, Harry had gone to call them 'Space Wolfes' to himself, began to work their way into just about every path of the ship.

He glanced over to McPherson who looked around in something akin to remembrance and von Bismark who was more looking around in wonder.

"A far cry from 'Frau im Mond'," he said after a while making Harry wonder what that was.

"The artificial gravity is new through," McPherson noted and Harry could see how she seemed to await to loose her feet under her any minute, always holding onto one of the rails that were build into the bulkheads of the ship.

"Just as the art and the other colors," she continued." Who in their right minds brings art into a warship?"

"Art lovers?" Harry wondered as they passed a very large painting that looked like something Picasso could have made.

Harry blinked as he noted a small signature in a corner of the image. It was a Picasso!

"Art lovers who stole from Earth," he added and pointed at the large painting." This seems to be a Picasso."

McPherson stared at the painting for a moment, while von Bismark blinked.

"What?" he wondered.

"Not important," Harry said and noted that it was mysteriously of blood strains, considering the pair of deheaded and gutted alien corpses close by.

They reached an open shaft and McPherson eyed it nervously.

"Under zero gravity this should lead to the bridge," she noted.

Somewhere above them they could hear a scream and a whimper of panic and Harry didn't think much as he simply jumped into the shaft. He had learned to know NoGrav shafts and instinctively knew that this was one of them. With skill he had been forced to learn during a six month of hard work in a zero-gravity mine, he grabbed a handrail and pushed himself upwards.

"Stop!" he called out as he reached the opening in the shaft where the rather pathetic girlish screams whimpering came from and swung himself out of the shaft.

His landing was one of those skills he had yet to master, as he tumbled in the artificial gravity that returned to him. He whirled with his arms and tried to grab one of the ever present handrails, failing in such a way that he nearly fell back into the NoGrav shaft.

As he managed to get his balance back and breathed deep in and out from his not so close brush with death, he was treated with another rather comical look, that reminded him of watching one of those American shows.

The first 'Wolf that had changed, was holding one of the pirates into the air, ready to pretty much tear of his head. The comical part was that the rather hairy 'wolf was completely in the nude, while the blue skinned and humanoid alien looked very much like the classical nerd. A pair of thick glasses, buckteeth, wild black hair, a white short sleeved shirt with a single chest pocket with pocket protector that was filled with pens and other devices, to short brown pants, over long white socks and a pair of polished shoes.

"My Emperor?" the large 'wolf asked and looked at him, still wanting to remove the aliens head.

"Let him go," Harry said, feeling very much like doing what the alien had already done, crapping his pants." We need someone to fly this ship."

Harry had the feeling that this guy didn't know a thing about flying this ship, but he did look too pathetic, dangling there like a rag doll, that he could be a real threat. Besides Harry believed that he could take on a nerd, especially after finding that he still could do magic.

"As you wish, my Emperor," the 'wolf said after a moment, where he had looked at the alien and simply let him go to drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, before scrambling away from the 'wolf on all four and hide behind one of the consoles.

Just now Harry noted the still bleeding corpses of several pirates laying in several corners and swallowed.

"Uhm... who are you?" he finally asked the 'wolf very carefully trying not to stare at...

The 'wolf grinned at him showing his pearly whites through he did have en longed canines.

"I am Alexander Erikson, my Emperor," he said and his voice seemed to boom through the bridge," Wolf Rune Priest of the Space Wolf Chapter, 13th Company."

Harry swallowed and breathed in and wanted to ask something else as he was interrupted by a gasp from behind him.

"That guy is hung like a horse!" the voice of McPherson called out and Harry closed his eyes, once again feeling a little inadequate when it came to his own equipment.

"Someone get him a pair of pants," he finally called out with a little bit of envy in his voice." Or a freaking loincloth or something."

Something that appeared to be a flag of some kind sailed through the air from where the alien nerd had hidden behind a console, hitting Alexander on the head and neatly covering it. Alexander pulled the flag from his head and growled in the direction of the Nerd, who got himself known again through a louder whimper of fear. Alexander got the picture however and used the flag to make him sowhat decent.

Harry got his next bad mental image as McPherson passed Alexander on her way to one console, while winking at him and licking her lips. Harry did not want that image in his head wondering where to get a bottle of bleach.

Von Bismark was the next to enter the bridge and stopped next to Harry surveying the room and than raising an eyebrow at Alexander.

"Wasn't that a little excessive?" he wondered and made Harry wonder how a German came to use British understatement.

"At least something goes right," came McPhersons voice again and everyone turned to look at her, even the alien nerd looked up from behind his hiding place, but ready to duck any time he needed to." They didn't change the GUI?"

"GUI?" was von Bismarks question.

"Graphical User Interface," McPherson said after a moment of letting her fingers move across the display of the console like it was a console in Star Trek.

Harry moved closer behind her and noted that it was a far cry from being a Star Trek console through as you could actually understand it, at least if you could read Intercosmo. McPherson let her fingers dance over the console and after a moment had changed the language of the display to English.

"Its a beauty," came from the nerd, who by now was a little more sure of himself as he very slowly stood up." And an art in its simplicity."

"Simple?" McPherson wondered and called up a dialog that should start Emergency protocols if Harry read it correctly." Its far from simple..."

The nerd huffed.

"Its much more simple than anything I have ever seen," he said and very varily moved closer, keeping away from Alexander." And the underlaying code is a work of art. Highly optimized and modular! There is no problem in adding new code modules for new hardware with its User Interface."

"Right..." McPherson said after a moment of hearing the nerd rant over the computer.

"I needed only three weeks to write the interfaces for shields, artificial gravity and the slipstream drive. And who knew that the artist that created the ships OS has implemented an Intercosmo language layout?"

"Because its Japanese," was McPhersons comment, but the Nerd continued.

"I'm just this close to compiling an AI for the computer. The optimizing is a work of art and I could compress the AI's routines by a hundred times!"

He was interrupted however as McPherson looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Why didn't you ever notice the tachyon emergency broadcast?" she wondered and Harry noted that she had pulled up a log file that was nearly overflowing from the same entry.

"Huh?" was the nerds comment and he stopped next to the console, making McPherson roll her eyes.

"I mean this Earth Alliance standard tachyon emergency broadcast..."

That was followed by her muttering something about Nerds, rooms and 'get laid' which added another bad mental image to Harry's growing library of bad mental images.

"Leaving slipstream in ten... Nine..."

Battle Leader Hak'ey sighed as he stared at the display in front of him, cracked at several places, reminiscent of a number of battles he didn't want to fight over the past two month after the destruction of New Omelos. Half of the men and women on the bridge were injured to some degree, letting him wonder if the gods had forsaken them.

"Eight... Seven... Six..."

With the Doranians finding New Omelos, they had lost their new home, even if it was more along the lines of exile in shame. Only a dozen warships and about a hundred freighters what hadn't been converted into orbital habitats and even a single habitat had survived the Doranian attack and was now on the run from the galaxy.

"Five... Four... Three..."

Less than sixty thousand Dilgar remained.

For the n-th time, Hak'ey cursed Jha'dur and her ancestors for starting the war that had destroyed their once proud civilization. He had been dumb back than. Young and easily impressed he had let himself draw in by her charisma, like so many others of his people.

"Two... One..."

Now they were on the run again, trying to find a place for their race to survive the wrath of the Galaxy that was still burning brightly even after more than thirty years since the end of the war.

What demon had posessed Jha'dur to attack Jurians and Minbari fleetbases?

"Leaving slipstream."

The gray-whiteness of Slipstream disappeared from the display, showing the multiple colors of gas coulds surrounding this system in a large nebular. Not very far away was the green and white marble of a habitable planet a scout had found not even a week before by pure chance.

The first survey of the scout had returned the data of a cold and harsh planet, but at least if had a significantly thick atmosphere they could breath. There would be no need for bio domes, as those would eat away vast resources they didn't have and the land could most likely grow those plants they could eat. And if there was enough wild animals they would be able to eat meat again.

The thought of eating ombra again made his mouth water.

"Orbit is clear. I'm getting large quantum and EM resonance. FTL and STL sensors are down. We get only optical data."

Hak'ey nodded. It was one of the reasons they had decided to use this planet. No one would ever find them here and they could hopefully rebuild their civilization.

By the Gods, he hoped that he would live to see a city growing on that planet.

"Battle Leader?"

He turned towards the Force Leader that had spoken up.

"Yes?"

"I am getting a very strong EM signal, it comes from the gas giant of the system."

Hak'ey narrowed his eyes.

"An EM signal..." he noted.

"It is amplitude modulated. Maybe a communication signal."

"Curious..."

There was a large flash of multicolored light as a massive yellow and orange object simply appeared next to a sole asteroid that tumbled around its sun on an orbit between the sole terrestrial planet and the sole gas giant of the planet.

The object looked like someone had build a large ellipsoid and halved it from the top to the bottom. Vast engines propelled the ship forward. On its hull hundred meter tall letters of Ancient descent were painted, spelling out the name of the large ship _Pride of Ferrol_.

"Super luminary segment Three five ends," the soft female voice of Artemis, the ships AI, called out through the command center that bustled with life.

Squat blue skinned humanoids with copper colored hair were moving through the large command center.

Barin Makar, the commander of the ship sighed as he looked at the large transparent section of ten meter thick armor that protected the Command Center. They had reached the goal of their three years long journey through deep space, using the _Pride of Ferrol_ to save the last Ferrons from alien slavery.

The entire mission was a shot into the dark. No one knew if the new super luminary drive really worked as advised.

"Deploy sensory array," came the command from one of the ships sub commanders, while another ordered for the parasites to be deployed.

They had been lucky. The _Pride of Ferrol_ had been designed as a large scale colony ships, specially designed to develop a colony that would completely independent from the home worlds, providing vast production capacities for years and decades to come, able to build everything from simple screws, over highly integrated circuits to complete warships. Its parasites, Frigates, Corvettes and gunships were to provide defense against anything that might be out here in the depth of space.

But they had only been enough to keep back the alien invaders back until the_ Pride of Ferrol_ had been able to launch and bring two hundred thousand people into the safety of a far away colony. ten thousand of them were the elite of science, economy and military.

A hologram hovered in the center of the large Command Center of the twelve kilometers tall, two kilometers long and one kilometer thick mothership, showing data Artemis had already taken with its multitude of sensory systems.

"I recommend tight band laser link communication between the mothership and the parasites as well as the use of laser based detection and measurement systems," Artemis noted," I am reading serve resonances in the electromagnetic spectrum that renders EM sensors and communication systems nearly useless."

Makar nodded to himself.

"I second that recommendation." he said after a moment.

Artemis was a sister AI of Ferrols AI and three years of travel had shown everyone that Artemis would always work with them, just like the Ferrol AI had done for thousands of years.

"Sensory network on standby," Artemis noted, taking about several hundred small probes, each powered by a small fusion reactor and driven by a small gravitic drive that were streaking out into space to cover a larger area and act like a giant sensor.

"Network active, receiving data."

There was silence as everyone held their breath, waiting for Artemis to say that she found a habitable planet.

"I read two planets. One ferrolic planet just inside the outer life zone of the sun. Most likely cold but breathable atmosphere. Presumed common temperature is about five to six above ice. One gas giant with five moons. One asteroid belt between both planets."

She stopped for a moment.

"Interesting..."

Makar blinked. Artemis wasn't supposed to say 'Interesting'.

"I read a electromagnetic amplitude modulated signal originating from the gas giant. I am currently unable to triangulate the exact origin of the signal. I presume it is in orbit around the gas giant."

"FTL complete."

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta breathed in deep as he said that, pushing down the feeling of illness he always felt during FTL. It was always as if someone was wrapping a sling around his stomach and than pulled him through a singularity.

"Report," he heard Tigh say and again breathed in deep.

If anyone ever saw him throw up or even showing a minute amount of illness, he would never live this one down.

"_Pegasus_ reports in," the voice of Dualla's replacement said," as do every ship of the fleet."

Gaeta breathed out and sighed. Thanks the gods that they didn't loose anyone. Than he turned around and looked at his display, trying to pin point their position.

"Mr. Gaeta," Admiral Adama's voice cut through his thoughts like a hot knife." This is not where we wanted to be."

Seeing the ball of a large gas giant hanging on his display gave Gaeta the same thought. In a flurry of activity he leafed through the numerous sheets of paper where he had made his calculations for the jump and cursed silently as he noted a single error in the last calculation. Making a short calculation in his head he exhaled in relief and turned around.

"A little miscalculation," he said," We are just about a hundred million kilometers off."

Adama's looked at him, over the rims of his glasses and frowned slightly.

"I want you next calculation to be correct, Lieutenant."

"Yes sir," Gaeta said and exhaled in relief again and turned back to his console.

"DRADIS contact. Its huge!"


	5. Chapter 5

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 4

Aiko shuddered slightly as she looked around in the corridor of the _Kobajashi Maru_ that lead away from the bridge. She could see several decapitated pirates lying around, one even impaled to a bulkhead with something that looked like a naginata.

In the thirty years of her life she had seen a few battles and battle scenes, but nothing was close to what could be best described as carnage on this ship. Even if it were pirates, the way they had been killed was just too much even for her.

She breathed in deep, trying to tune out the smell of blood that was hanging in the corridor, as she reached a door.

"Shinosuke?" she asked carefully as she looked into the room behind the door.

The room appeared to be a mess hall of some kind and thankfully there were no corpses laying around.

Shinosuke sat at one of the tables of the mess hall, head buried under his arms and wings, as if he tried to tune out the world around him. The shockstick he had been ready to use against the pirates was laying next to him on the table.

"Go away," he mumbled and pulled his wings closer to himself." I need to think..."

Aiko sighed and shook her head, before drawing one of the chairs from the table and sitting down on it. She made a face as she tried to find a comfortable way to sit in the chair. Why couldn't these pirates build chairs where she could put her tail through the back?

"Shin-chan," she said and got a growl from him that made her smile a little. It never failed to get a reaction out of her twin brother.

"What is going on?" she asked." You've never been like this."

Not even during the capture by the pirates and them being sold. She knew him very well, as well as one could know ones sibling. She knew when he was nervous and didn't know what he should do.

It didn't really make any sense. He used to be the hair to Master Naruto, before he was killed by the pirates, but even than Shinosuke hadn't been like this. He had always been calm and collected, ever since he began learning from the Master himself.

Shinosuke pulled his wings back from around him, letting them settle down to his shoulder and looked at his sister with one eye.

"It's this... gaijin..." he said after a moment." The gaijin mahoutsukai..."

Aiko blinked. Shinosuke was mahoutsukai, he knew if he someone else was mahoutsukai like him. Aiko didn't really know what that had to do with anything. Sure it was surprising than other people had their own mahoutsukai, but the great council had always speculated that they existed ever since the first pirate had attacked.

"Why?"

Shinosuke's other eyes opened and looked at her and Aiko could see the light shudder of nervousness run through his wings. There it was again, why was he nervous. He hadn't been nervous through all this.

"Do you remember when we were send to the Nakisha shrine the day after out tenth summer?"

She looked back at him, blinking again.

"Of course I remember," she answered and sighed." The miko told us who was capable of mahou..."

Shinosuke nodded slowly and breathed in deep before he pulled up from the table and massaged his muzzle, another sign of his nervousness.

"That wasn't all," he said after a moment." The miko made an oracle about me and my destiny..."

"WHAT?"

Aiko all but jumped up from her chair, knocking it back over and sending it clattering to the ground. She stared at him. Her twin had an oracle hanging over his head? That couldn't be anything good.

"Why do you think Master Naruto made me his hair?" he asked and his nervousness seemed to leave him at that moment." I maybe a powerful mahoutsukai, but not so powerful that he would have made me his hair without reason."

Aiko turned to look towards the door. The oracle on her brother had something to do with the gaijin, Harry...

"What is it?" she asked and turned her head back to her brother to look into his eyes.

"I am the kanpaku," he answered and flinched slightly." I am the one who was oracled to find the Shogun. I am to be his advisor."

Aiko stared at her brother and sat down. The chair still hadn't moved from its place where it had fallen down and she sat heavily on the ground deeper than she intended to be. Hadn't she been as shocked about her brothers revelation, it might have been funny.

"No..."

She heard her brother breathe in deep.

"He can't..."

"He is," Shinosuke said after a moment." Everything fits until now. He was under chains, like us. He is marked my lightning, that scar on his forehead. He used mahou while he thought it to be lost. His presence caused beasts to turn into men, sort of. And he brought us on a ship named like a forest."

He breathed in deep and Aiko managed to get herself up from the ground, pulling herself up to the table to see her brother close his eyes.

"The only things missing is the fourth city of tongues, build in among the stars, and that he is of the blood of the serpent and the fire bird."

Several meters down the corridor on the bridge. Harry Potter sneezed.

Admiral Takano looked up towards the small display above the screen that showed the gray whiteness of slipstream. The numbers of distance and time on the display seemed to crawl by as _Yamato Takeru_ speed towards its target star at five hundred times the speed of light.

The Yamato could have been faster than that, but Takano had to keep the other vessels of the small fleet in mind that weren't fitted with the new improved Quantum Slipstream drive. Just like it was fitted with artificial gravity.

Six hours and they were going to reach their destination.

Takano wondered if fleet command had made the right decision to send a third of their fleet, fifty ships to the Sakugenchi system, as it was already known in the fleet. One one hand they were going to build up a fleet base and a colony in that system, but on the other hand he felt like they were going to leave Zaitaku defenseless.

His eyes moved towards the small display that showed the ships of the fleet. Fifty warships, including the Yamato, twenty five heavy five megaton transport ships with prefabricated systems for a fleet base and a colony and twenty troops transports for colonists and personal.

The entire operation was designed to make the new colony as independent from Zaitaku as possible to give the Shin'bi the ability to free their homeworld should the pirates every decide to invade and take it over. It was unlikely that the pirates would ever win on the planet itself, thanks to massive subplanetary installations build during the cause of the pirate problem, but their orbital weapons would make any real attack dangerous at best as so ships were always needed.

And the new fleet base would have to build those.

The entire operation was based on the data from a returning survey ship that had found a habitable planet In a system that appeared to be uninhabitable thanks to the massive Quantum and EM interferences. Two planets and a single asteroid belt orbited the sole sun nearly hidden inside a gas cloud only about fourty lightyears away from Zaitaku.

The sole habitable planet was rather cold, but the temperatures allowed to grow food in glass houses all year long and had multiple very useful ore deposits the survey ship had found. The most important deposit of them all was a very large deposit of CV Embinium, the mineral they needed to build most quantum systems. Hidden beneath the thick ice cab of the southern hemisphere, it was large enough that some scientists theorized that it was responsible for the interferences, through it appeared that the gas giant in the outer system was equally responsible.

The survey hadn't brought much about the gas giant. It had several moons, but they weren't really interesting, through they could be a good position for a secondary fleet base just in case.

That only left one thing.

Why had a priest said that they would meet the Shogun there?

Six hundred years were a long time. Especially if the one perceiving these six hundred years happens to be an artificial intelligence, based inside a large computer system meant to control a large space station meant to support up to one million people, human or alien.

Jack was one of these artificial intelligences.

Missing more than about fifty percent of his common work load, since he hadn't to control about fifty percent of the stations systems, nor did he have to help or support the crew or the people living aboard.

Jack had wondered if he could get bored during the first month after Jeffrey Sinclair had gone into cold sleep. Ten years later he had found out that he could very well get bored and the numerous speakers all around the station had echoed with a nearly endless chorus of 'Bored, Bored, Boredy bored'.

Over the next ten years Jack had literally developed a new kind of music, sorely consisting of variations of the word 'bored' in several dozen languages and tones. The longest he had needed to say 'bored' had lasted a month for this single word.

At the end of these first twenty years of idleness, he had noted the first failures of his systems, small ones that would normally have been repaired by the crew, but there was no crew and as such no one able to repair these minor systems.

He then had needed five years to find a way around that particular problem, eventually upgrading his own software to provide him with solutions his creators hadn't thought of. In the end he had the full design of a rather primitive robotic drone he could use to repair the systems in question. The following year he had needed to reactivate the fabricator systems deep withing the stations industrial sector and build the first drone.

It had been a spectacular failure.

It detonated in a spec of white light, destroying parts of the fabricator line that had created it after the plans, sending Jack back to the drawing board.

The second design was less of a failure, at least until its simple navigation systems let it roll over the edge of a flight of stairs and destroyed most of its sensors.

The third design, build five years after the spectacular detonation of the first, wasn't a failure, but neither was it a real success. Its navigation was good, it didn't detonate, but it was rather clumsy and the first try to use it to repair something had resulted in the torch neatly serving a power line and electroducing the drone.

It was the fourth drone that was his first success and it was able to repair several systems, but not all of them. It was still to blunt to be of any use to repair anything really small, like a computer system. However it was very well able to handle anything up to complete reconstruction of entire rooms.

Jack called this fourth design a Scuzzer drone and build several hundred of them to handle most large scale maintenance.

But the smaller systems called for drones able to work and maintain them.

The fifth drone was smaller and mostly designed with the smaller systems in mind. Equipped with a higher level AI than the Sccuzzers, they were able to not only repair systems, but also run hardware diagnosis of the systems where Jack wasn't able to find the problem on a software base.

So he called them Diagnosis and Repair drones, or DRD for short. Like the Scuzzers he build several hundred of them.

Strangely enough both type of droids turned out to be highly individual AIs, as each appeared to develop its own personality over time. Of course that lead to several funny and interesting moments, like the live reenactment of 'The Life of Brian' about a hundred years after Jeffrey Sinclair had gone to sleep.

In this time, several other maintenance problems appeared. Neither Scuzzers nor DRDs were really very useful to maintain the hull of the station ans there were several stray asteroids that had destroyed transmitter arrays or defense systems.

Another new drone was needed. One that could do the work of both Scuzzers and DRDs free floating in space.

He called them Jockeys and only build two dozen of them.

Build them, he noted that he was slowly running out of materials to build his drones as well as hydrogen to run the fusion reactors of the stations on the absolute minimum powerlevel.

That needed a large drone that could catch asteroids and comets and bring them to Babylon 4 for break down. The result was the _Red Dwarf_, a thug boat that was build from two shuttles and four maintenance Furies.

But the lack of a crew and the fact that nothing happened made Jack a little paranoid. It wasn't very bad, but he started to wonder if those who would hear his beacon, might not be nice people. While he might be very capable of dealing with them in outer space, they had to board first, before Jack would know what they wanted. And neither Scuzzers and DRDs were really able to provide any defense for his inner systems.

So he designed and build two different defense druids. One was a large biped heavy assault unit that could provide heavy firepower, while the other was a light, nearly filigree drone that could very well be send through small spaces and ambush any attackers.

He called them ED and AMEE and build a hundred of each model and positioned them at any important section, like the reactors, the command center or his very own computer core.

But even if he had given each of his drones a high independence, they were not really good company and three hundred years after Jeffrey Sinclair began to sleep, he was bored again.

And discovered a very nice hobby, through he had to 'forget' one of Sinclairs last orders for it.

Gardening.

Setting the entire station under pressure again by pumping atmosphere back into it, he began to work on creating a nearly perfect 'wilderness' in the two large gravity cylinders.

And it was a hobby that nearly made him forget time.

Until a whole fleet of unknown ships appeared right next to Babylon 4 and he noted them on his sensors.

"Huh," he made and his voice sounded through the entire station." This is funny..."

"Normally this would be the part when alien monsters pop up and slowly decimate the troops send onto the derelict ship," Private Marson noted as the hatch of the Raptor opened.

While Lieutenant John Carter wanted to laugh, he shot the short Marine a short glare, telling him to shut up. Looking around, he did have a bad feeling about this, but he hoped that it was wrong.

Two hours ago the fleet had jumped into this system, just that they had appeared in orbit around the single gas giant of the system instead of the planet many in the fleet had began to call New Caprica. Not that Carter was one of those who wanted to settle down.

And they had just jumped into range of a large anchorage. So close in fact that it was fortunate that they hadn't jumped right on top of it. That could have been messy.

The anchorage was nearly ten kilometers in length, several times the size of even the Ragnar Anchorage and it had two rotating cylinders to simulate gravity. One was rotating inside the other. The level of engineering needed to successfully build something like that was staggering. Sure the Ragnar Anchorage had counter rotating sections as well, but they were not rotating inside of each other.

Half an hour ago they had left in three Raptors, trying to get inside the station and maybe secure it. One hour before that had been used to try and reach the crew of the Anchorage, but no one had answered. They had needed nearly twenty minutes to get to the bow of the Anchorage and on the way they found out that it had a set of very large and very powerful engines and various weapon turrets scattered over the surface, none of which they were able to fully identify.

And now they were standing inside a large hangar in the frontal part of the Anchorage, after the outer airlock had closed and pressurized. This made Carter nervous. It meant that there was someone in the station and this someone was most likely watching them.

Light suddenly flared up inside the hangar, causing several of his Marines to jump and look around. One or two even panicked slightly and shoot at the lights destroying some of them.

"Calm down!" Carter called out and breathed in himself." Someone **is** here and watches us."

He felt the looks of his Marines returning to him and breathed in deep.

"Marson, Argos," he said and looked into the direction of the two Marines." You remain here and keep an eye on the Raptors and the pilots."

"We can look after ourselves," Racetrack quipped up and glared out of the airlock of her Raptor.

Carter looked over to her. The rivalry between the Marines and the stick jockeys was well known and so it was not very surprising that scuttle butt held some interesting and embarrassing informations for each group.

"You can't even plot a good jump to Caprica."

Racetrack glared at him now, while some of the Marines chuckles, along with the pilots of the other Raptors.

"Hey, I found New Caprica!"

Carter rolled his eyes and looked back at his Marines.

"The rest comes with me," he said and pulled his gun closer to himself." Lets see who watches us. Capala, Martin, you take point."

Than he moved to walk towards the airlock on the other side of the hangar. Like in training, they piled on each side of the airlock, while Carter tried to find a way to open the airlock.

He didn't need to open it however, as it opened by itself.

The person on the other side of the airlock remained strangely calm as he looked into the business ends of several guns.

"Uhm... Welcome to Babylon 4?" the man said after a moment and in perfect Caprican.

The man was of average hight, with short cropped, graying hair. He very slowly dropped his hand, while making a show of it that he was holding no weapon.

"Ahm... Is it too late to say that there are no weapons allowed on this station?"

Carter looked at the man who was wearing rather normal clothing, through the short sleeved shirt was printed with a floral pattern that literally screamed at him with its different colors.

"Who are you?" he asked a moment later, slowly dropping the gunbarrel to the ground, through he could still pull it up to fire.

He gave a not towards his people, who followed his example.

"I'm Big Brother," the man said and gave them a hard glare before breaking out in a grin with a short wave with a jovial smirk." Only messing with ya. I'm Jack. Nice ta meet'cha."

"Lieutenant John Carter," Carter said after a moment of looking at that friendly face, wondering if that guy was a Cylon.

I might be the case, but Carter wasn't sure about that. The anchorage Jack had called Babylon 4 wasn't really something the Cylons would do. Why allow them aboard if they could have long since destroyed the fleet with its weapons?

"Are you the commander of this anchorage?" he than asked him.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"I think you could call me the janitor and the gardener."

Carter was very sure that many of his Marines were blinking now.

"Gardener?" Martin wondered out loud and Jack gave her a disarming smirk.

"Hey, this station got over fourty five square kilometers of biosphere space. Someone had to look after them."

Than he looked a little thoughtfull.

"Hmmm... Looks like we got company," he said out loud and began to scratch his chin before raising an eyebrow." Dilgar by the looks of it. Curious..."

"Raptor Six come in," the very audible voice of Apollo came of the Raptors radio behind them." We just got company. An unknown ship just jumped in."

Jack found himself at the business end of the guns again.

"Was it something I said or did?"


	6. Chapter 6

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 5

--

Doctor Kevyn Andreyasn, scratched his chin as he wandered the halls of Hogwarts. The Teraport project was slowly moving towards its conclusion and with it he began to learn more and more about magic, even if he wasn't able to do magic.

Okay, maybe some mind magic. He had beaten just about intelligence test he ever had bothered with and he found himself being able to find solutions to many problems over time.

Around here he had been presented with the biggest challenge he could imagine, and with him most of his colleagues that had made it to Hogwarts in the course of Operation Atlantis. By now they laying the first theories about magic and how it shaped the world, coming down to the manipulation of space time to get the desired results by manipulating some form of higher dimensional energy that only certain people could manipulate.

But those were only theories.

Some real results had been made by hardening technology against magic in the first few weeks at Hogwarts. It was strange how easy it was, or rather how easy it was done with a number of magical runes scratched into the object you wanted to be hardened. It was a modified version of the 'Finite Incantum' spell that allowed other rune spells on the object to still affect it, but not in such a way that it would 'unharden' the object.

He stopped at a door and looked into the class room behind it.

Professor McGonagall was teaching Transfiguration to some of the few magical kids that were still in Hogwarts. It was a school after all.

He leaned into the door and listened to what McGonagall taught the kids. Right now they were to transfigurate a match into a needle.

Kevyn's head swirled around another thing through. The Teraport needed a little more computing power than he had projected. The Arthimancy calculations were rather complex through a magical person could do them on the fly if needed in some sort of intuitive process. But to transform the Arthimancy calculations into classical arythmic calculations was something they needed a powerful computer. Or several computers that would run the transformation calculations at the same time.

Transformation... Transfiguration...

He stopped, pulled the magically modified sunglasses from his face and massages his eyes.

"Professor?" he asked from the door and put his sunglasses back on." On a word?"

The elder woman raised an eyebrow and turned to her class.

"You continue trying to transfigurate your matches," she said." I will be outside to talk with Doctor Andreyasn."

The class chorused a 'Yes, Professor.' and McGonagall turned towards Kevyn.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?"

Kevyn eyes the class for a moment, the door was still open so that the Professor could get back in case of an emergency.

"I wondered about Transfiguration, Professor," he said and his eyes went back to the elder woman that could still put up a mean fight as far as he knew." I overheard your class and you said that one could transfigurate everything into everything else."

McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

"Close, Doctor," she answered." You cannot conjure food for example."

Kevyn chuckled.

"But essentially all you need is just about any form of matter to create things from it."

McGonagall nodded.

"Essentially, yes."

Kevyn smiled, just like he had smiled when he had the basic idea of the Teraport device.

"You know I work on the Teraport in the 'Technomagical Lab'," he said." I hope you might come by later so we could talk a little more about Transfiguration."

"Oh?"

Kevyn chuckled again.

"I have an idea that might allow us to forget about those raids for supplies. Maybe we could create some sort of Fabber that takes care of creating everything we want, based on the saved blueprints."

Another thought stuck him, remembering one of the computer games he liked to play now and than 'Command & Conquer'. Maybe they could build, if the Fabber idea worked, a vehicle that could create whole bases and military equipment from scratch after being teraported to the target area?

Armor it, equip it with a few weapons and give it command and control systems and you could have some sort of Armored Command Unit.

Kevyn smirked.

"I'll see you later than..."

--

Harry eyed Alexander, still a little nervous about the 'Were Marine', or 'Space Wolf' as he even called himself. Being nervous around someone who had been forced to be a werewolf for two years, according to the Nerd, could not be very sane after being back to what could be described as normal.

Harry idly wondered what would happen if he came back to Earth and it was full moon...

What made Harry even more nervous was that Alexander and the other five 'Space Wolfs' were constantly calling him 'my emperor', 'my liege' and similar honorifics and had all but completely put themselves under his command, even going as far as swearing it by their lives.

Harry had felt the magic of a magical oath, which made him very nervous about the whole thing. Just like the stared from the sole male Shin'bi in what appeared to be a training group.

Harry had asked him about that and what he had meant by 'mahou'. After several tries to describe it, Harry had found out that mahou was the same as magic. And it turned out that Shinosuke, the name of the Shin'bi, was a wizard, or Mahoutsukai as the Shin'bi called it.

During the talk with Shinosuke, Harry had found out that the Shin'bi hadn't been able to use his magic as his slave collar had been modified to suppress the magic. That in turn meant that the galaxy out there knew about magic and had ways to counter it.

Now that the collar was removed, he could use his magic again and Harry had been surprised to see that it was wandless magic, mostly based around the movements of the entire body, mixing it heavily with what looked like Kung Fu from those Hong Kong movies Dudley used to like. His parents hadn't forbidden them, seeing that Hong Kong used to be the crown colony of the United Kingdom.

The bigger surprise was that Shinosuke was offering to teach him 'majutsu'. Harry had thought about it for a few moments before nodding and taking the offer. It might be interesting to see how different it was from the wizarding that he knew.

Which brought him back to Alexander, who didn't seem to leave his side ever since he had sworn his oath.

"Bad news," McPherson said as she entered the small mess most of the former slaves were located in." I can't get us out of this situation. We got a warship, but its not going anywhere..."

Behind her von Bismark entered the room and moved to sit down on the long table of the mess. McPherson crossed her arms over her chest and remained standing.

Harry just blinked, thankful for the distraction away from his new bodyguard and looked at McPherson.

"Why?" he wondered and asked the question most of the occupants of the room had running through their heads.

"Because only I know at least something about flying this ship," she said and closed her eyes, one of her rather meaty hands massaging the bridge of her nose." We would need a full bridge crew to get it moving. And we lack just that."

Harry swallowed. He had no illusions that the Doranians would try to look for whatever had stopped their slave transport when it didn't arrive at least two hours after the scheduled arrival. And that could mean that they would go back to being slaves. Not a future Harry looked forward to have.

Around him everyone looked at each other and Alexander frowned as he shot a glance towards his 'Space Wolfs'. They would fight for their Emperor...

"Uhm..." a voice piped up and everyone turned towards the Pirate Nerd, who was named Andrew of all things." There might be a way..."

"And what would that be?" von Bismark said and glared at him what made Andrew try to get smaller.

"That AI I talked about," he answered and swallowed." Its finished and I wanted the old captains answer to adding it to the ships systems before activating it."

McPherson scratched her chin.

"It would control everything?" she wondered." Even life support?"

"Well..." Andrew said and swallowed again." No. Life support is still an independent system with its own controls and reactor. He would be able to control gravity, but not basic life support."

"He?"

"The AI got a male personality core."

"How fast could you activate it?" von Bismark wondered and looked at him intensely.

"I just need to get its remote drone to activate it. Because of several incompatibilities, I needed to install its core unit a remote drone. The AI could than even be disconnected from the ship and still retain its personality."

McPherson and von Bismark looked at each other.

"I think we should get it," Harry said." Its worth a try. But someone should make sure he doesn't activate it and turn himself into the captain and commands those cleaning drones or something."

Andrew swallowed again and nodded.

The older people looked at each other for a moment.

"Okay," von Bismark said after a moment and nodded." Maybe you should take care of that. I guess that you are able to keep Andrew from trying anything. I still need to talk to Elena about something."

Harry sighed and than glared at Andrew. He had been there when Harry had showed Shinosuke some magic and knew that he was dangerous without a weapon and that Alexander would currently follow him everywhere.

"Okay, McDuff," he said and stood up, still looking towards Andrew," lead the way."

Andrew just nodded and moved very quickly to get out of his chair and out of the door of the room, equally quickly followed by Harry and Alexander. The Pirate Nerd lead them down several decks and into a rather small but again very stereotypically nerdy room.

There was a single object laying on the table, looking very much like a dumbbell, through one of the spheres was smaller than the other. Andrew was making his way directly towards it, but Harry moved a little quicker and reached the table before the Nerd.

"This is it?" Harry asked and turned around to glare at the Nerd again.

Andrew nodded and yet again swallowed. Harry reached out towards the object and frowned a little. That was it? Nothing else? And that thing would be able to control this ship?

"Don't," Andrew started as Harry placed a hand on the larger spheric part of the dumbbell only to end with a rather lame 'touch it...'

The sphere lit up and a blue ray passed over Harry's head.

"Activation confirmed," the sphere said and something that looked like a pair of eyes and a speaker grill formed as a holograph in front of the sphere." Commanding officer ID locked."

Harry stared at it dumbly and watched how it floated into the air, the larger sphere on top, connected to the softly red glowing smaller one through a rather simple rod.

"Hello, Captain," the drone said and the speaker grill seemed to turn into a smile." I am Enesby, former galactic boygroup and now your AI for this ship."

Harry just groaned and face palmed.

Why always him?

--

Force Leader Mal'ak breathed in deep and looked at the large display in front of him. He had long since gotten used to the damaged display and the spider cracks running through the material covering the display. It used to be a backup system, but since the holographic systems were destroyed during the Battle of New Omelos, even through it had slowly failed in the years before, it was the only display he had.

His ship, the _Tears of Zeus_, was the fastest ship the small fleet that remained of the once great Dilgar nation and the only one where the sensory equipment was still working at more than half its original specs. And as such it had fallen to him and his ship to fly to the sole gas giant of this system to find the source of the radio signal, while the rest of the fleet sat down on the sole habitable planet of the system.

The white grayness of the short range slipstream jump faded from the display, replaced by the massive globe of the gas giant that dominated the screen.

"Report," he called out, trying to keep at least the resemblance of order on his ship, even if he knew everyone personally.

"The radio source is orbiting the planet in two point three million distance," was the report he got from his sensory technician." I'm reading a large metallic mass and about one hundred smaller metallic masses close to it."

Mal'ak nodded and breathed in deep. What could it be, he wondered.

"Can I get an optical image?"

"Its too far away," the sensory technician responded." We only got one of four telescopes and there is too little optical data to run a interferometric scan."

Mal'ak breathed in deep.

"Status of weapons and shields?" he asked, fully well knowing the status already.

"We can get the shields to twenty five percent nominal strength if we push it," was the answer." And we only got one tube with three missiles and three bolters anywhere close to combat readiness. and one bolter is spot welded in its position."

At least that bolter was facing forwards.

"Prepare a short range jump to the position of the metallic mass."

A few moment later the gray whiteness of slipstream appeared again for a few sort seconds before the display showed the planet once again, larger this time.

"Distance?"

"One thousand. I'm getting a good optical image of the object."

The screen changed slightly, still showing the planet, but another objects hung in the center of the display. It was a massive cylindric space station consisting of a pair of counter rotating cylinders inside of each other and a ring of very large radiator and/or solar energy panels sticking out from the end that was pointed towards the gas giant.

Mal'ak's mouth opened slightly as he stared at the massive station in front of him. There was data displayed next to the image of the station, a wireframe image and its dimensions. It was huge, larger than even the largest orbital habitat he had ever seen.

Slowly he closed his mouth again.

"And the other objects?"

The screen changed again, this time showing a number of randomly assembled ships of all sized and shapes. In a way this fleet resembled the Dilgar remnants that were now landing on the habitable planet.

"Two of the ships appear to be warships. Correction, they are some sort of assault carriers. I detect multiple active targeting signals and fighter launches. Currently no active shields."

Mal'ak nodded.

"Prepared passive targeting solutions and keep the shield on stand by. And than get me a com-channel."


	7. Chapter 7

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 6

--

Going from a high social standing down to a very low social standing was nothing anyone would like. The greater the difference between the two social standings, the worse things were for the person going through it. Maybe one of the worst fall from a high to a low social standing was to go from high nobility to being a slave.

Ariel of Salasia, was one of those rather few people who went that way. In her case from being a Salasian Princess to become a slave.

Her fate was not very nice to her, especially if one counted ending up in the not so tender care of the pirate captain Ani Zalak. Ani Zalak used to be a rather sadistic woman, especially when one counted how she used to create her 'pets'.

In Ariel, she had found a perfect little victim for herself. Despite or maybe because of being a princess, Ariel had a very strong will and a hard head, which made it even more fun for Ani Zalak to humiliate her. She had been very careful not to break the will of the former princess, instead making sure that she was presented with ways to free herself again and again, only to be caught by her crew sooner or later, making the punishment and the humiliation Ani Zalak would use even more fun for her.

Ariel was helpless against the pirate captain, even the valuated strength and the military training she had received, Salasians used to have a very proud military tradition and all members of the Royal Family received military training regardless of their gender, she knew that she would always be caught by her 'owner'. In a way it made her stronger, her hatred towards pirates in general and the Jurian Governor that had sold her into slavery growing by the minute.

Five years ago, the Salasian Kingdom still used to be a minor through independent power facing the Jurian Empire itself on its rimward border. The Salasians were a proud people, proud in a history that reached back into the ancient times of the galaxy, before either the Jurians or the Minbari had even thought about getting into space. Times when the Ancient Ones still roamed the galaxy before they were destroyed by the Great Old Ones in a war that devastated the galaxy and left Salasia a broken planet.

The Salasians, having been space fearing before the Great War more than 25000 years ago and the fall of the Ancient Ones, had to rely heavily on their remaining technology to rebuild their civilization and make their planet habitable again.

The long time they needed to rebuild themselves, resulted in a heavy reliance into their technology and care to rough it up to incredible degrees, in such a way that their buildings would be able to withstand heavy orbital bombardments. Everything they build was literally build for eternity.

They than grew to a small and peaceful star nation, through they maintained a rather huge military, just in case of a Second Great War and kept them well supplied and trained, resulting in pretty much the best combat units in the galaxy.

Which was the reason for their fall. Being just a mid-to-high Quantum 2 civilization, they were not able to stall the Jurian and Galaxy Police fleet that left slipstream above Salasia and pretty much told them that they were now part of the Galactic Union and their fleet and troops drafted to fight one of the many border skirmishes between the Union and the Federation, or to keep a look out if Kagato might return.

The Galactic Union placed a governor in charge of a new replacement government that removed the parliamentarian monarchy of the Salasian Kingdom from power, reducing them to a mere puppet government.

No one was lucky with the hostile takeover and a resistance formed rather quick and was just as quickly taken out by Galaxy Police, Jurian Knights and units of the Salasian military that was forced to participate.

Ariel of Salasia, as one of three Princesses of the Royal House of Salasia, happened to be the head of the resistance.

Knowing that he couldn't simply force his way to execute Ariel, the Jurian Governor played judge, leaving Ariel in the worst prisons of the Union, before eventually deciding on a fate worse than death for a proud member of the Salasian Royal Family. Slavery.

So Ariel eventually ended up in the hands of Ani Zalak, forced into shackles and doing everything that Zalak deemed to humiliate her. Or just plain tortured and taunted the Princess.

--

Harry massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed as he glared at the hovering form of Enesby. The AI grined at him, wiggling a pair of holographic eyebrows.

"What can I do for you, Oh Captain, My Captain?" Enesby quipped and moved to hover around Harrys head.

Behind him, Alexander couldn't help himself as he broke out in a wide grin, while Andrew, the Pirate Nerd, glanced at him nervously.

By now Harry was slowly coming to terms of being forced into the role of the captain of this ship by its new AI. He wondered how von Bismark or McPherson would take this happening.

"Is there any way to get someone else to be the captain?" he wondered out loud, trying to get out of this a last time after having tried some other ways to persuade the AI.

"Well..." Enesby welled and looked thoughfull." This is a pirate ship. I am pretty much a pirate AI. And as such programmed to follow pirate rules."

"And?"

"You'd have to be killed by someone else so that he would become captain instead of you."

Harry groaned. Being stabbed in the back was something that wasn't very high on his list of priorities, just a little beneath 'Being killed by Tommy Boy' and 'Being sold into slavery'.

"Sucks to be you, doesn't it?"

Harry glared at the quipping AI. He was in mind to destroy it, but than they wouldn't be able to get out of this.

"How much of the ship do you control?" he than wondered.

"Everything," Enesby said with a grin." From the artificial gravity, over the plumbing to the big engines. I could even haunt the plumbing if you'd like."

That comment cemented Harrys suspicion that Enesby would get along very well with Sirius.

"Speaking about controlling..." The AI noted and looked upwards." I think there is someone in your new quarters, captain."

"Stop calling me 'Captain'," Harry insisted rather strongly before he blinked." Quarters? Someone in them?"

Enesby grinned again and slowly hovered towards the door.

"Just follow me everyone," he noted." We could take a look if you want."

Harrys thoughts moved around how he maybe could manage to get von Bismark to be the captain as he, Alexander and Andrew followed the AI through the long corridors of the ship and up two decks towards the Captains quarters.

"Here we are," Enesby said after a few minutes of walking and floating through the lift tube as they stopped in front of a cabin with a pair of large blood strains left and right of the cabins airlock." The maintenance bots took care of the former guards, they just need to clean up a bit."

Harry eyed Enesby and breathed in as he reached out to open the door with a touch in the panel next to it. The airlock swung open, showing a room that could have very well been on one of the classical pirate movies from Earth.

Through the bare wall and the shackles were different. As was the nudile Salasian woman chained to the wall.

The skunk like humanoid looked up and a pair of yellow eyes locked with Harrys green ones.

"You even got your very own damsel in distress, boss."

Harry stared at the soon-to-be-freed princess-turned-slave and than massaged the bridge of his nose again.

"Bloody Hell..."

--

Jeffrey Sinclair groaned as he slowly came back into the land of the living, his head feeling as if a hundred Rangers were doing combat exercises in it.

"Wakey, wakey, boss," the voice of the stations AI pounded through the combat exercises, causing Sinclair to groan again." I wonder if I should dangle an Aspirin in front of the bed to get you out of it..."

Through all the throbbing pain in his head, Sinclair noticed that the voice came from a place closer to him than he would have expected.

"How long?" he groaned out and was suddenly hit with the smell of fresh coffee of all things.

"About six hundred years, give or take a decade..."

Sinclair slowly opened his eyes and than closing them again. groaning as the light in the med lab assaulted his optical nerves. He breathed in deep and opened his eyes again, seeing a blurry image that had so what humanoid proportions and seemed to hold something.

Slowly his vision cleaned as he breathed in deep again and slowly pulled his head up.

The image slowly became sharper, condensing into a madly grinning man of about fourty years with graying hair, dressed in one of the most hideous Hawaii shirts he had ever seen. In one hand he was holding a large mug of coffee, Sinclaur normally knew from Ivanova, while the other held a can.

"I brought fresh strong coffee," the man said with the voice of the stations AI, sounding slightly tempting.

"Jack?" Sinclair asked, his voice still creaking lightly from the after effects of stasis.

At least it had advanced so much that you didn't need days to get up from stasis. It only took hours now.

"The very same," the man said, his mad grin widening if that was even possible." You're seeing one of my remotes."

"Remotes?" Sinclair wondered out loud and pulled himself up groaning again.

The remote of Jack shrugged.

"Six hundred years are a long time," he said and nodded sagely." I had much time to think. Play around with the fabbers a little and the like."

Sinclair slowly reached for the mug of coffee and Jack smirked as he pulled it away every so slightly.

"Coffee," Sinclair said after a few moments of trying to grab the elusive mug, sounding slightly like Ivanova," now..."

Jack allowed him to grab the mug and shrugged as he sat down on the side of the bed.

"I had to ship around some of your orders," he continued." I needed to keep the station working and in good condition. So I had to build me a small army of repair drones and the like. And I build a couple of remotes like this."

Jack wiggled his eyebrows and grinned, while Sinclair emptied the mug in one go, feeling slightly better afterwards.

"Why did you wake me?"

Jack scratched his chin.

"We've been found. Purely by chance through. I doubt the radio signal is able to leave this system with that amount of interference. Its a sort of Rag Tag Fleet on the survivors of a human civilization that are on the run of someone called Cylons."

"Human civilization?" Sinclair wondered, the words more or less registering, but his mind not yet catching up to them.

"No idea about that boss. But a few of their shuttles are sitting in one of my hangars, together with one of my remotes."

He seemed to think for a moment.

"And than there is that one Dilgar scout ship that is currently floating not far from either me or the RTF. I got both of them in my sights if needed be."

That one word registered a little more and Sinclair looked up from refilling the mug of coffee.

"Dilgar?"

"Dilgar," Jack noted and slowly scuttled away from the mug and the can as the mug slowly began to flow over with coffee. "You better watch your mug through..."

Sinclair blinked and than cursed as the hot coffee flowed over the edges of the cup, his hand and than into his crotch, that was currently only covered by a thin sheet of fabric.

"Gah!"

"Oh lookie, they are ready to talk..."

--

Ariel glared towards the airlock of Zalak's quarters, and at the two humans that was standing in it as well as the flying robot/remote/whatever next to them.

"Bloody Hell," she head one of them say in Earthern English.

Was this another of Zalak's games with her? Had she found out that her people had looked at the planet Earth for millenia since the Great War and that everyone of the Royal Family spoke their languages. Had she abducted one or two humans?

The smaller of the duo was pretty much staring at her. He was a little on the small side, a wild shock of hair surrounding his head as if he had grabbed a free power line. His body was covered in dirt and grime of what appeared to be years and his clothes had seen better days. She could tell that there used to be a slave collar around his neck, the wounds of electrical burns on his neck plainly visible.

The features that stood out most however were the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the heavily scarred and nearly skeletal hand.

The other was large and easily outweighed the largest of Zalak's pirates and looked to be older than the other guy. He was also extremely hairy through not as much as much that it could be considered to be fur. The only thing he wore was what looked like a sheet and like the smaller guy he was in desperate need of a shower, through he was mostly covered in dried blood.

The remote was looking rather plain, hovering in the air and displaying a holographic face.

"Is this one of those times what Zalak considers fun?" she asked out loud, speaking English and glaring at both of the humans.

"Uhm..." the smaller guy said and slowly moved closer to her." I guess the former captain is dead."

Ariel snorted.

"I believe that if I see her rotting corpse."

"That can be arranged," the remote noted dryly." One of the maintenance bot is just on its way to move her corpse to the converter."

The younger guy had reached her by now, keeping his eyes steadily above her chest level, very obviously trying not to stare at her not-covered-by-clothing body, through she knew that he had noted the scars that were plainly visible through her fur here and there.

Ariel continued to glare at him, while noting that the larger guy seemed to be ready to help the younger guy should the need arise. She had seen quite her share of bodyguards over time and this guy was very much acting like one.

"I'm Harry by the way," the younger guy said and slowly opened the shackles around her wrists, through she wondered how that was possible without the keys.

"Harry," she noted dryly at him and pulled her arms towards her body before stretching them a few times and massaging her wrists." Ariel, Princess of Salasia."

Harry stared at her in shock for a moment, before massaging the bridge of his nose.

"Just my luck," he muttered." A bloody Princess... Did I taunt Murphy lately?"

Ariel glared at him, still ready to defend herself should this once again be one of Zalak's jokes.

Her head whirled around at hearing a grinding sound from the door, staring at it. A maintenance drone was moving into the room, dragging a bloody corpse with it, leaving a very visible bloodstain on the floor.

"Look," Harry said after a moment, trying his best to ignore the corpse as Ariel walked towards it." I used to be a Doranian slave from the planet Earth until two hours ago after a successful takeover of a slave shuttle and a fight with pirates without even getting off a shot as his guys took them out."

Harry pointed at the large man, while Ariel looked at the corpse. The clothing of it and the look of surprise in the bloody, but still intact half of its face, made her realize that it was Zalak to her feet. Than her eyes fell onto an item that would make sure that she would remain free even if this was a very elaborate joke.

"And now I find myself being the bloody captain of a bloody pirate ship with a bloody insane AI. I..."

Before Harry could finish, Ariel had pulled the large hand gun that used to belong to Zalak from the quick draw holster and pointed it into Harrys face. He blinked, but that was just about everything he did. Obviously he didn't know that he was staring right down the projector opening of the 'Galaxies most Powerful Handgun', as he would have soiled his pants very fast if he did.

Meaning that he could indeed be from Earth, as pretty much everyone in the galaxy knew how the MTK-950 looked like.

"The truth," she said and glared at Harry, not without glancing over to the remote and the large guy for a moment.

The remote looked very nervous, mostly at the gun, while the large guy looked read to jump her, despite the gun in her hands.

Harry made a hand motion that told the large guy to stop, before he even moved, before looking into her eyes.

"I am telling the truth."

Either Harry had balls of steel or he was an idiot of ignoring that the MASER pulse from her gun would flash fry him if it hit. And it would hit. Even if it hadn't been a MTK-950, he could be very dead from being shot by a gun pointed directly into his face, even if it was a slugthrower.

"You are from Earth," she said.

"Yes."

"You were taken by the Doranians..."

"Yes."

"How?"

Harry breathed in deep and closed his eyes and Ariel couldn't help admire him at last slightly. It really took much to keep as calm as he was.

"They invaded Earth three yeas ago," he said." Bombarded every major city and army base before moving in."

Ariel grit her teeth. Earth had been invaded by that lowlife of the galaxy? And the Jurians hadn't stepped in? For being the supposed 'guardians' of the planet, they seemed to give a damn about the planet. It made her hate grow. Her people knew the truth about the planet that was now called Earth by its inhabitants.

It used to be the homeworld of the Ancient Ones before the Great War and the Salasians had kept an eye on the developments of their heirs, ready to step in once they were ready, as a thank you for the help their ancestors received from the Ancient Ones.

One more point to her personal list of 'Why I hate Jurai'.

She slowly let the gun drop, still ready to use it if she had to.

"You are pretty calm about having a gun pointed at your face," she noted and smiled slightly at Harry.

"Are you kidding? I was ready to crap my pants."


	8. Chapter 8

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 7

--

"Visual contact confirmed, _Galactica_," came the voice of Hot Dog over wireless.

Recently promoted Admiral William Adama looked at the DRADIS display, as if he could force it to give him more details than general size, mass, velocity and position of the unknown ship that had jumped close to them and the massive anchorage.

Of course the fleet had moved out of the way of the presumed weapons range of the anchorage, but they were still close enough to get the three Raptors back to them before jumping out if needed.

"Can you make out details?" Tigh asked next to him looking at the same DRADIS display.

"Not much at the moment," Hot Dog noted." Doesn't look Cylon through."

"We don't know if the Cylons might have ships other than Basestars and Resurrection ships."

"It would have launched either nukes or Raiders if it was a Cylon ship," Adama noted.

His glance went over towards the contact that was _Pegasus_. The Mercury class Battlestar was keeping between the unknown anchorage and the fleet, while _Galactica_ faced the unknown ship.

Both ships had launched their Vipers and Raptors, ready to attack if the unknown ship made any hostile movements.

"I can make out details now," Hot Dog said after a few moments." Frack, it looks like it has recently seen battle and one or two nukes."

"What?" Tigh asked and looked at Adama, who still continued to look at the display, scratching his chin.

"The hull armor is blackened in multiple places," Hot Dog answered." Hades, I can't even make out what color that ship used to be."

"Do a closer pass and try not to make any movements that might be considered hostile."

"Roger, _Galactica_."

Several moments passed where everyone could hear Hot Dogs light breathing as the last few dozen kilometers were crossed by the Viper. For a moment the contacts of the Viper seemed to merge with the unknown ship as the Viper made a pass.

"Gods," Hot Dog called out." That ship looks like it has meet the wrong end of more than one nuke."

Adama looked over towards Tigh, and for a moment he remembered how a Basestar had destroyed _Columbia_ and the nuke that his his ship not so much time ago. He could imagine the damages the ship might have taken.

"I don't think it can be much of a threat anymore," Hot Dog continued." I don't see any form of anti-air weapons and most of its weapon turrets are destroyed. It looks more like a heap of scrap than a warship."

"Admiral," the voice of the communication officer of the watch cut in," I'm getting a communication attempt from the unknown ship."

Adama looked back on the display and than at the office and Tigh.

"Put it on the speakers," he said and than looked down to the microphone he held.

A slightly rumbling voice said something in an obviously alien language, but the only words Adama could understand were 'Tears of Zeus'.

Tears of Zeus? Was that the name of that ship? Why was a possible alien naming their ship after a Koboloan god? Maybe they weren't alien, but members of the thirteenth tribe?

Adama eyes Tigh for a moment, before his eyes returned towards the display. If this were people from the thirteenth colony, he didn't want to make any hostile looking movement or comment.

But what if it was a Cylon trap after all?

"This is Admiral William Adama of the Battlestar _Galactica_," he said." We did not understand you."

The voice was silent for a moment and as it spoke again, Adama could hear surprise in it, aside from being able to understand it at all.

"You are speaking our language?" the voice asked with what sounded like a heavy Gemenon accent. "But you don't understand Intercosmo?"

Adama let the microphone drop for a moment, leaning heavily on the plot trying to think for a moment. Maybe the ship really belonged to the thirteenth tribe.

"I am speaking my own language," he said." Everyone in the Twelve Colonies spoke this language."

"Interesting," the voice said." What are your intentions in this system?"

Adama breathed in deep. Should he tell the other one that they intended to colonize the planet and that they misjumped? If this was a member of the thirteenth tribe, they might not need to do that.

"We are on our way to the Thirteenth Colony," he said and breathed in again." Earth."

Looking towards several of the crew members around, he could see than several of them were crossing their fingers and that one or two were muttering prayers.

"I don't know of a planet with that name," the voice admitted.

"Maybe you know it by another name?" Adama wondered.

The Twelve Colonies used to have other names in ancient times after all.

"Or maybe I could help," another rather cheerful sounding voice suddenly cut into the connection." Assuming you'd like my help of course."

Adamas head whipped towards the communication officer.

"It comes from the anchorage!"

"I'd even like to invite everyone over. Galactica send a nice squad of people already, maybe you'd like to do the same, Force Leader Mal'ak?"

The voice stopped for a moment.

"Any relation to a certain Sith Lord?"

--

"What?"

Joachim von Bismark stared at Harry, making him slightly uncomfortable. Alexander was showing a slight grin on his face, while the newly discovered Ariel was sitting on a chair, obviously not in the slightest bothered about the fact that the gun belt securing her very large gun was her only clothing at the moment. Harry way glad that the fur actually covered most of her body.

"It's not like I wanted to be captain," Harry answered after a moment before glaring at Enesby who displayed a very large grin.

Currently only those who more or less the leaders of the small band of former slaves were sitting in the small mess hall behind the bridge, including Shinosuke and Haruka, while the others were taking care of the former slaves that had been broken or were still injured.

"I just touched Enesby before Andrew could do it."

"And the touch felt soooo goood," Enesby suddenly piped up and gave of a sound that sounded very much like a sigh.

Harry glared at Enesby, while most in the rooms snickered.

"How could I have know that it would activate him and acknowledge me as the new captain?"

"Actually..." Enesby noted and hovered closer to Harry and von Bismark," I have been online since our large friend here took out the bridge crew."

As he said that a green holographic crystal popped into existence above Alexanders head for a few moment.

"What?" came from just about everyone, the loudest being Andrew.

Enesby eyed his creator for a moment.

"Oh come on, you have designed me so that I'd take over the ship once the bridge crew was removed."

Than he turned to McPherson.

"And I let you snoop through the systems because I knew that you couldn't do much about me or even find me."

Harry turned to glare at Enesby again.

"Than why am I the captain now? I don't think that it was me touching you..."

Enesby grinned even wider.

"Well, besides the touch feeling good," he said with wriggling eyebrows and got a growl from Harry who looked about ready to break him in half and floated a little higher." You're the best for the job."

Again he was meet with a loud what coming from just about everyone.

"Why?"

Enesby looked a little unsure how to explain it.

"Ensign McPherson might be the only actual Earth Force officer here," he said and looked at the older woman," but her file is less than spectacular. You could have been Commander by the time this ship fell into the hands of the Doranians, if it wasn't for repeated insubordination..."

"Than we have Herrn von Bismark," he continued and turned towards the German," No offense, but I don't really trust you, especially because the EA historical files don't have you in it. And since you were abducted in the early 1930s, you could be a member of the NSDAP for all I know."

"I am not," von Bismark said and glared at him." I don't even like the way Hitler manages his people. And what does that have to do with anything?"

"Remind me to show you the historical files about Germany after 1932."

Enesby turned to the pair of Shin'bi.

"Liksewise, you two are unknowns. Hell there aren't many informations available about your people at all, besides being very sneaky and stealthy warriors.

"Big Guy?" he wondered for a moment and again the green crystal popped up over the 'Were Marines' head." No offense, but you're insane..."

Alexander just showed a large grin and shrugged his shoulders. From what Harry had gathered over the last hour the man was essentially rather sociable, had a strange sense of humor and was insane...

"And the Princess," he said and looked at her for a few moments." I got this feeling in my circuits that you might have done something very dumb and over reacting. Mainly because of your recent years..."

Harry folded his arms and glared at Enesby.

"You could say the same about me," he said.

"Not really," Enesby noted and grinned a grin Harry didn't like. It looked like he knew something he wasn't ready to tell.

"You are the hero type," he said." Through most of the time not really willingly. You just seem to be the victim of a strange ancient Chinese Curse."

"May you live in interesting times," Harry deadpanned.

"Exactly. I trust you that you won't be misusing the command over this ship but rather try to do a good job at it, even if you don't like it. And you'd be likely to try and get advice from those who are willing to give it to you."

Harry frowned a little.

"And why do you think I am like that?" he wondered." For all everyone here knows I could be the opposite."

Enesby's grin got wider. As it was a holographic projection it was very possible for him.

"Mainly because of this..."

Seven holographic books suddenly hovered in front of Harry's face and he had to cross his eyes to read the titles and see the pictures on them.

He felt his jaw drop as he read the title of the first book.

"Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone..." he read out loud and quickly scanned the titles of the other books.

Than he stared at Enesby who grinned even wider.

Harry abruptly turned around and stalked towards the door of the mess hall.

"Screw this," he called out and for a moment glared back at the others." I'm going to take a long hot shower in my supposed quarters. I suggest the rest of you do the same. And Enesby, lay course towards that Tachyon signal."

He left the mess hall and was followed by a number of blank stared.

"He took that better than I imagined..."

--

King William V of Great Britain and the United Kingdom stood on the balcony of the large quarters he had in the Griffindor tower of Hogwarts and looked out onto the great lake beneath.

Actually it wasn't really a lake, but rather a form of fjord that cut through the Highlands of Scotland and only a hundred meter passage with nearly vertical walls lead into what the Wizards called a lake. He for one was glad that it wasn't a lake, but a fjord as it made hiding what was left of the Royal Navy so much easier.

He looked down onto the improvised docks of the equally improvised harbor, wondering if any of these ships would ever be used.

_Ark Royal_ had survived First Impact and with her had her escort, consisting of _Liverpool_, _Monmouth_, _Montrose_ and _Trafalgar_. _Trafalgar_ was also one of four submarines that had made it. She, _Tireless_, _Victorious_ and _Vigilant_. The two later were large Boomers, each carrying sixteen Tridents and had been lucky to be able to launch with emergency crews as HMNB Clyde was hit by a Doranian kinetic strike.

Not that they had been in any shape for launching their missiles with any chance to hit the Doranian ships.

He watched as _Tireless_ moved away from its improvised dock to leave the security of Hogwarts 'lake', ready to dive before leaving towards what remained of the United States. She would take a dive under the Northpole to get to Camano Island close to Seattle, where what remained of the United States Government was hiding their own few left over subs, three Los Angeles and one Ohio.

Nuclear submarines where the only way of communication between 'Operation Atlantis' and other pockets of resistence, like the United States and Kamchatka.

For a moment, he wondered what his grandmother would have done, or his father for that matter. Well, his grandmother wouldn't have been amused...

"Your Majesty?" he heard a voice behind him and slowly turned around.

He smiled a little as he looked at Professor Hawking and his relatively new assistant Luna Lovegood, a rather unorthodox witch. Sometimes it was scary how well she worked with the Professor and they gave each other ideas. The trio of Lovegood, Hawking and Andreyasn had developed the teraport nearly on their own.

"Professor Hawking, Ms. Lovegood," he greeted them and nodded slightly.

He tried to ignore the sowhat dreamy and glazed over look of Luna, knowing that a keen mind hid behind them.

"What can I do for you."

"Ms. Lovegood had a very interesting idea, your majesty," the Professor said.

By now it was normal to see him speak, even through his mouth didn't move. Magic was surprising sometimes. While it couldn't fully heal him, it was at least able to make him able to carry a normal conversation without the need of his computer.

William looked at Luna with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, Ms. Lovegood?"

She continued to smile dreamily and fiddled with that butterbeer cork necklace of hers.

"The submarines are able to keep air inside, isn't it?" she asked in her normal sing song voice.

"Yes, they do."

"Maybe we could put a teraport device into one of them and apparate it into space to fight the alien ships there?"

William blinked and looked back out onto the lake, where _Tireless_ was diving. For a moment he wondered how the merpeople on the lake were taking the subs and the ships. Than his mind moved to the possibilities. He looked back at the Professor and his assistant.

"Would it even be possible to teraport something from the sea into space?" he wondered.

"We don't know," the professor admitted." We would have to do some test as soon as we can build the teraport."

William nodded and scratched his chin. A teraport into space wouldn't make a sub into a spaceship. It would be little more than a piece of dead and cooling metal once it got into space. Even if it was a boomer and launched its missiles at a Doranian ship a close range, it could be only done so many times and even than it was unlikely that it would really change anything for the better if they managed to destroy the ship.

"A teraport doesn't make a starship," he than told his thoughts.

"But we could make it move like a broom," Luna noted and grinned a little as a flying red Mini passed the window.

Yes, the Weasly's had managed to build a real flying car that didn't spontaneously develop life. It could be the answer to the movement problems of the sub, but could whatever the Weasly's had done be done to a sub?

"It would still make is valuable to an attack," he said." We don't have shields."

"The Americans are nearly finished reverse engineering the shield from the Vree ship that crashed at Roswell," the Professor noted." If we gave them the teraport and the flying enchantment, we might be able to get their shield."

William hmmed and once again turned around to the window, watching from up hight how the dark shape of _Tireless_ moved towards the cliffs that made the fjord look like a lake.

He would have to give his okay to modify a submarine. He was the Government at the moment, much like the absolutist kings of the past. He had a number of advisors, but that didn't make it any easier.

"I will have to think about it," he said and his eyes followed _Tireless_ on its way into the ocean.


	9. Chapter 9

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 8

--

Sinclair cursed silently. His head felt like Drazi were fighting over green versus purple. And than was his crotch, still hurting from the very hot coffee being poured into it, so he was walking slightly bowlegged.

He was following one of Jack's remotes through the corridors of Babylon 4 towards the main reception lobby of the station, where he would meet with the representatives of the two parties that had found the station.

They passed a line of seven yellow Scuzzer robots, that where singing 'Hey ho, hey ho, off to work we go' of all things.

"What the hell..." Sinclair said and nearly dropped the mug of coffee that he held in his hand.

"Don't mind them," Jack noted and grinned a little." Nearly all of them have developed quips over the last few hundred years."

Sinclair stared at Jack for a moment and than shook his head tiredly. He may have slept about six hundred years, but it was defiantly to early to deal with something like this. He turned back to the corridor and stared it down, seeing something in red passing it for a brief moment.

He didn't really want to deal with this now. He wanted to wake up sowhat normally, not already deal with a diplomatic problem already. Hell, he felt like he hadn't eaten anything in 600 years, and technically that was true. He felt like he could eat a horse.

For a moment what Jack had told him about the pair of contacts surfaced. One party were Dilgar, meaning that the galaxy they had landed in was close to home. The ship they had arrived in however was worse to wear and Jack had noted that it would be more useful as scrapmetal.

The other party looked and behaved like humans, but they were speaking a language that was very close to that of the Dilgar, which in turn was very close to ancient greek as far as Jack could tell. A pair of large ships, each just a little smaller than an Omega, but lacking any rotating sections, seemed to defend a small fleet of ships that appeared to be a cross section of civilian vessels.

They had been there for about an hour before the Dilgar had appeared and Jack had used the time to analyze as much of their radio communication as possible. These humans, or humanoids for the lack of a better term were coming from a place called the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, where ever that was.

More important was what he had pried from the Colonial Marines after they had landed and turned one of his remotes into swiss cheese after he had admitted that he was an AI, what the Colonials called Cylons. Apparently they had build a line of intelligent robots that had then switched to try and exterminate them, nearly succeeding.

To Sinclair it sounded like the plot of an old 20th century TV serial.

"Here we are," Jack noted and they entered a large lobby that looked out of place on the station.

It was a far cry from the terminal Sinclair remembered. Gone was the feeling of a, well, terminal, replaced by what looked like the lobby of a very expansive hotel back on Earth. What was it called? Burgej Al Arab?

Several copies of Jack were manning the various counters that lead to the single gates and hangars of the station, while a group of human or human looking people were standing or standing around a tall palm and the couches surrounding it. Another copy of Jack and a pair of very mean looking chrome glittering bipedal robots with equally mean looking big guns left and right of the torso where standing with them.

"Hi Jack," the copy of Jack said and waved over to them.

"Hi Jack," Sinclair's copy of Jack answered and waved back.

Sinclair felt like his headache was only going to get worse. The stares he got from the humans was similar and the moment he realized that he was currently stuck looking like a Minbari. Sometime he had to try and change back...

"Alien," one of them muttered as Sinclair walked over, still nursing his coffee.

For a moment Sinclair thought the man's voice had a hall effect and looked at Jack. Well one of the Jack's anyway.

"I automatically translating," Jack noted with a grin." I hope you're not misunderstanding each other anyway..."

Both of the Jacks than turned towards two different Gates where another pair of Jacks were entering the lobby, each having a group of people in tow.

One was trailed by a group of Dilgar in very ratty clothing and Sinclair thought that he could smell them from where he was standing.

Another group of five humans or humanoids where following the second Jack and were directly walking towards the group of Colonial Marines.

Sinclair breathed in deep and downed the rest of his coffee before placing the mug on a nearby table. Than he walked over to where the two groups where meeting under the large palm tree, nearly stumbling over one of the small yellow bug like DRDs.

What a great way to make a first impression, even through the Dilgar were looking at him with fear, where the humans or humanoids looked curious, amused or just freaked out. He idly noted that their weapons were more directly pointed at the now four Jacks and the pair of large robots.

"I am Jeffrey Sinclair," he said after a moment, desperately trying to forget the throbbing headache." The... caretaker of this station."

"A strange name for a Minbari," one of the Dilgar, Sinclair assumed he was the leader, said.

"I'm not really a Minbari," he answered." Nor was this station build by the Minbari."

The assumed leader of the human group eyes the Dilgar for a moment.

"Force Leader Mal'ak," the Dilgar said and breathed in." Commander of the _Tears of Zeus_."

Sinclair nodded his head, forcing down a wincing as his headache got worse for a moment and than looked towards the other group.

An elder man and a woman of about the same age, both bespectacled, had stepped forward. The man was wearing a dark uniform that reminded him of an Earth Force uniform, while the woman was dressed in a suit.

"I am President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the woman introduced herself and Sinclair didn't really know how to react to it.

A President, he wondered. Through if they really where all that was left of their civilization...

"Admiral William Adama of the Battlestar _Galactica_," she than continued and pointed at the elder man.

"Madame President, Admiral," Sinclair acknowledged and was about to say something else as he was interrupted.

"Anyone want cake?" Another Jack said as he entered the lobby, balancing a large plate on his hand.

"THE CAKE IS A LIE!" another Jack screamed and jumped up, only to be dragged away kicking and screaming by another pair of Jacks.

Sinclair once again felt how his headache got worse. He was sure that something would happen that would complicate matters even more.

--

Outside of Babylon 4 a bubble of space twisted and turned for brief moments before a single blue glowing point appeared from nowhere, before rapidly expanding to a large blue glowing circle.

The circle moved slightly and like a giant three dimensional printer it seemed to 'print' into space. What it printed was a giant ship that looked like someone had taken an egg, pressed it flat and than halved it. Painted in red and yellow colors the large vessel was taller than Babylon 4 was long.

Accompanying it were are large number of smaller flat box shaped ships that surrounded the ship like a shell.

The _Pride of Ferrol_ had arrived.

--

Harry breathed in deep as he looked into the mirror in front of him. He felt better than he had done in the last three years. Sometimes a long hot shower really helped. Especially if you had your last bath three years ago.

The shower had actually lasted about an hour, with the first ten minutes needed to bang his head repeatedly against the wall of the showering stall, while the last half an hour was needed to just stand in the hot water and let it run down his body.

He looked into the mirror. The face that looked back at him wasn't really that of someone who was just eighteen. If he hadn't known the person in the mirror, he would have guessed the reflection to be in his early to mid twenties.

If he ever had any baby fat left, it had burned away during the years of slavery, while the hard work and the strangely filling food had made him muscular and rather fetching to the eye. At least to his own eye.

His hair hadn't grown much and he blamed his magic about keeping it at that length and while dirt, grime and sweat had kept it down in the recent years, now it was back to its usual chaotic self. At least it was covering the scar on his forehead a little better now.

He breathed in again and shrugged his shoulders a little uncomfortable, picking at the shoulder of the clean shirt he was wearing.

"Where did you get this clothes?" he idly wondered into the room to see if Enesby was hearing him.

"Appearance is important in the galaxy," Enesby actually answered." The former captain had a clothes and jewelry fabber installed."

"Ahh..."

Harry was not about to ask why especially Enesby had chosen to hand him a officers uniform of the British Royal Navy instead of anything else he would have preffered. He was glad to wear clean clothes at all.

"It's even a low profile armor," Enesby noted idly and continued at Harry's 'Huh?'." Think of it as a form of dragon hide armor mixed with a kevlar vest. It can survive most of the stuff thrown at it and keep you safe."

"Ahhh..." Harry said again and than reached down to grab the glasses that had been provided by Enesby." I guess glasses count as jewelry?"

"Pretty much."

Harry nodded to himself and placed his brand new glasses on his nose. It was a far cry from the patched up, broken and damaged glasses he used to wear.

"And they also got a few additional systems integrated," Enesby noted again." Like a tactical overlay, IR, UV, radar and x-ray functions. Very close to omninoculars."

!-- page size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in P margin-bottom: 0.08in --

Harry blinked and eyed Enesby.

"That is part of 'jewelry'?" he wondered out loud.

Enesby snorted.

"I know of one instance where a Jurian noble hid a gram of antimatter in his jewelry," he said in a deadpan voice." Lets just say that it was not very healthy. Neither to him or everyone in a kilometer around him..."

Harry snorted. Not healthy indeed...

Than he shrugged.The rimless glasses looked very good. For a moment, he wondered how Enesby knew those things about the wizarding world, but than remembered those books.

"You know that I'm going to read those books soon..."

"I figured as much."

He looked into the mirror a few more moments and sighed. Than he looked towards the door that lead to his supposed cabin.

"Could you please take care of the previous owners stuff?" he wondered." Space them or something. I just want a normal room, okay?"

"No problem, boss," Enesby answered." Any wishes?"

"Nothing more than a normal room. A normal bed, a normal dresser, a normal desk and chair. Nothing of the stuff the previous owner liked."

Enesby chuckled a little.

"No problem. You might want to get to the bridge. I think you'd like to place blame... I mean jobs for the others..."

Harry rolled his eyes and slowly left the bathroom of his new cabin and quickly crossed the cabin to get out into the corridor. The bloodstains on the walls were gone as were any signs of a battle along the way towards the bridge.

A few minutes of walking later he reached the bridge and entered. Von Bismark, McPherson, Alexander, Shinosuke and Haruta were already there and stood around, looking at each other more or less comfortable.

Harry looked around. The pair of Shin'bi were wearing pretty much the same they had worn before, safe for being clean. Just like everyone had followed his suggestion to clean themselves up.

McPherson was wearing a gray uniform, obviously a clean version of the damaged uniform she had worn before. She looked rather at home in it.

Alexander was wearing something that looked like a medieval knight, not unlike some of the oldest suits of armor he had seen in Hogwarts. They were more chain mail than sheet metal. And over it was something that looked like the robe of a monk, through with various viking symbols, an Aquila and skulls all over it, mostly ornamental from the look of it.

Lately von Bismark was wearing a blue uniform, he looked rather uncomfortable in.

Harry walked closer.

"What is that uniform?" he wondered.

"The Uniform of a Korvettenkapitän of the Kaiserliche Marine..." von Bismark said and frowned." I don't know what the ships brain had in mind about it."

Harry frowned and looked toward the Maccara of the floating ships AI after looking at his own shoulder.

"What rank did you give me?" he wondered.

Enesby grinned and hovered over to him.

"The rank of a Captain of course," the AI noted." Complete with all the legal red tape. Congratulations on your new ship."

Harry sighed and slowly sat down on the seat that was closest to him, which coincidently happened to be the seat of the ships commander. He gently massaged his forehead. He just knew that he would get a headache from trying to argue with Enesby.

"And here comes the Princess," Enesby noted and Harry looked up and towards the entrance of the bridge.

Seeing Ariel entering made him wonder if it was too late to take a cold shower. The orange-black outfit she wore left little to the imagination and the large belt with her new gun was adding to that picture. Harry just knew that he was blushing not unlike Ron as Ariel smiled at him for a moment before adding a wink.

Harry swallowed as Ariel moved closer and stood up next to the others, incidentally placing herself in a way that Harry had a full view of all her glory.

She eyed Enesby for a moment.

"Where did you get this uniform?" she asked the AI.

Enesby seemed to shrug.

"The previous captain somehow got her hands on a whole crate of these uniforms some years ago. She wanted to modify it for herself, but since it is pretty much impossible, she forgot them in the cargo hold."

Ariel nodded and Harry couldn't help himself.

"That is a uniform?" he wondered out loud.

"Its a multipurpose combat skinsuit," she said with a chuckle." It able to interface with any Salasian control systems and has twenty times the protection value than any low profile armor. It actually rates as medium power assisted armor with most other races."

Harry nodded sowhat idly and breathed in deep. Somehow he knew that she would continue to wear this 'multipurpose combat skin suit', just like he knew that he would enjoy the view...

"Okay," von Bismark cut into Harry's thoughts, just as a goofy grin was forming on his face." I think we should talk about who is going to be what. Especially since you are the Kapitän, Harry."

Harry shook his head clear. His first glance went towards McPherson.

"You are going to be the pilot, I guess," he said." About anyone else I don't have any idea."

Harry's eyes once again were drawn towards Ariel as she scratched her chin.

"I am trained as tactical officer," she said after a moment." So I will take that position."

Harry just nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to look at the Salasian woman.

"Okay," he said.

"By the way," Enesby noted." We're going to reach the source of the Tachyon signal a little earlier than I thought. Just about half an hour more until we're there."


	10. Chapter 10

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 9

--

Slowly a submarine moved further into the depth of the Atlantic Ocean, moving away from the North American coast. Twenty kilometers behind it a large slave camp was burning in bright flames.

Three years ago, the submarine would have been seen as a direct attack against the United States, but nowadays, no one, especially not the Doranians care much about any submarine. Mainly because they didn't believe they actually existed.

Once the submarine bore the name _Dmitri Donskoi_ and was the first of the Typhoon class of Soviet ballistic missile submarine. Now its name was unknown, as it had disappeared from it dock in Severodvinsk just before the Invasion.

Now she carried less than its original twenty missiles, ten of them having been replaced by a hold for a pair of Mi-24 Hind gunships and barracks for infantry.

Another part of the submarine was closed off from most of the rest as quarter of a special pair of guests.

One room, it could best be described as an office was dark, only illuminated by the glow of several red lighty, casting surreal shadows throughout the room.

"I fail to understand why?" one of the two occupants asked the other." Why is this man so important?"

The other man chuckles lightly and leaned back in his chair, smirking at the first man.

"Because I need his head. Or rather what is in it."

Both man were bald, through one of them had the back of his head covered by a metal plate. Whether it was there because of an injury was hard to tell.

"I could extract what you want to know," the man with the metal plate said and scratched his chin with a gloved hand.

"You could." the other man noted," But we both know that there would not be much left of him to use afterwards. His knowledge might be good enough for you, my dear Yuri, but I want his mind, his genius."

The man called Yuri eyed the other man. Both of them might work together, but neither was really trusting the other. Fate, or rather the Doranian Invasion had brought them together and forced them to work with each other. At first their work relationship had been filled with far less trust than even today, but the trust had grown a little with their respect for each other.

"True," Yuri said and slowly stood up and began walking up and down in the office." I could tweak his mind a little to give him the proper motivation."

The other man laughed.

"You see why this is my project," he said." I want him to join us out of his own will, not because he has no other choice or any saying in that matter. He is going to work much harder and faster when he really wants it."

The man smirked again.

"Do I need to remind you of your last project?"

Yuri frowned.

"No," he said coldly.

"He could have worked much faster if he would have really wanted it. Not even you can force your will on the human subconsciousness. It a very powerful part of the human mind."

Yuri glared at his current partner and frowned. A pity that he was immune to his mental powers.

"He used to have two strong motivators before," the man said," his ego and money, much money. I think that at least one motivator has changed during his life as a slave. Money is being replaced by a need for revenge. And revenge is a much more powerful motivator than money or the ego in itself."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," the man called out and Yuri faced the door.

It opened and a guard looked into the room for a moment, before entering, followed by a haggard looking man in dirty ratty clothes.

"You can leave," Yuri said to the guard, who saluted and hurried to leave the office.

The other man smirked a little as he looked at the fatigued man, who stared back at them with a pair of observant eyes.

"Doctor Anton Sevarius, I presume."

The man in question looked at the other man.

"And if I am?" he asked.

The man behind the desk of the small and dark office chuckled.

"Than I have looked for you for two and a half years. Please sit down."

The presumed Sevarius took the offered chair and sat down with a sigh.

"And why would you have looked for me, should I be this Sevarius?"

The man behind the desk smirked.

"Because I would have a proposition that would be very interesting to a genetist of his caliber."

"What would be in for this Sevarius in that case?"

The man behind the desk smiled evilly.

"Revenge," he said." Revenge against the Doranians. Revenge for those who have wronged him. Oh and many new discoveries that would be worthy of a man of his genius."

The presumed Sevarius narrowed his eyes.

"Maybe I am Doctor Anton Sevarius," he said and scratched his chin." And maybe I would be interested."

"Maybe?"

"I would like to know who I am speaking with before I, maybe, would want to hear more."

The man behind the desk chuckled again and than nodded.

"My name is Kane," he simply said." This is my partner Yuri. We are of the Brotherhood of Nod."

--

General Sawyer stared intensely at the red and gray machines that where leaving the modified C-5 Galaxy and slowly moved into a nearly perfect parade formation.

"Why didn't we have those things in Seattle?" he asked out loud and glared at the man next to him, wearing what had to be a powerarmor version of the machines that were still leaving the VTOL C-5.

Colonel Parker eyed the machines, noting the US Army patch on the maybe seven feet tall, winged machines. Truth be told, they were looking intimidating, but he doubted that they would be able to do very much in anything else but guerrilla warfare. The Doranian walkers were shielded and Parker doubted that these machines were packing weapons that could take on a shield.

Hell, only heavy bombs dropped by what fighter bombers had remained were able to crack the shields. To think that a tank sized walker needed a bunker buster to crack...

"We were not ready to deploy them even during the last stages of the war," David Xanatos, the man wearing the powerarmor, noted." And they used to cost as much as an F-16 pre-Invasion."

Parker eyes Xanatos, the owner of XanaCorp, the only company that had survived the Invasion and continued to produce and develop. All of it went into the Resistance one way or another. XanaCorp had many hidden production plants all over what used to be the United States and Canada.

"Only the Tiberium allowed us to produce them in larger numbers."

"What?"

Sawyer stared at Xanatos again, who smiled one of those superior smiles he was known for. The Doranian had given, or rather cursed Earth with the green glowing mineral that grew everywhere, extracting just about any useful elements from the ground.

Parker knew the latest facts about Tiberium through. According to Captain Carter, a very brilliant Air Force Scientist, Tiberium was actually a specific kind of nanotech, that produced the green mineral. It was spread through the air and if someone breathed it in, it would treat the person not unlike the ground, trying to extract elements from the person. It was not a very nice death, through there were people known to survive.

Strangely enough Tiberium didn't spread in Australia...

"We are using Tiberium," Xanatos noted." One of my scientists, Rodney McKay, was able to find a way to render it inert, through refinable through the use of sonic waves."

Sawyer frowned and than looked back at the machines.

"Can these things do anything against the Doranians? Besides choking them in numbers?"

Xanatos chuckled.

"McKay was able to refine the shield that protects the Erie Building," he noted." He was able to create a portable version."

Sawyer eyes Xanatos for a moment, a calculating look crossing his face.

Parker on the other hand couldn't help but remember that the Erie Building in New York was maybe the last skyscraper that stood in Manhattan, all because of the shield that protected it. Rumors said that it had been able to take the attack of a Doranian cruiser or concentrated magic from Oberon.

Yes, Parker knew that magic existed. Hard not to know it when Fort Teller was the last refuge of the American Wizarding Society, much like 'Operation Atlantis' over in Britain. And the existence of the Gargoyles was another sign for many mystic being to exist in real life.

"Shields you say?" Sawyer asked." Any chance of getting some for our tanks and fighters?"

"Why don't you ask McKay himself?" Xanatos wondered." He will be down from the Galaxy any minute now. He wants to take a look at your work concerning the Vree shields you got over here."

"We could need a working shield for the _Kodiac_ and the _Prometheus_ as well..."

Sawyer glared at Parker for a moment, who hadn't realized that he had spoken out loud. Both were not really a secret, but it was not encouraged to talk about them, fearing Doranian spy drones.

"_Kodiac_ and _Prometheus_?" Xanatos wondered.

"Prototypes of spaceships we are currently building," Sawyer said, this glare at Parker saying 'We are going to talk about this later'.

Xanatos smirked.

"I would throw in my stealth system if my people could have a look at them."

--

The large underground dock was bursting with activity. As he looked over the large black shape laying in the middle of the dock, seeing how her gut had been opened up to remove her inner works, he felt a peg of regret. To do this to his ship felt wrong, but at the same time, it was one of the few remaining options if they wanted to try and liberate Earth from the Doranians.

He was glad that the Doranians were ignoring large portions of the world in favor of putting down their claws in those areas with the densest populations. It sounded cynical, but merely eighty percent of mankind was suffering so that the remaining twenty percent had a chance to liberate the planet.

Sure there were raids on the 'free' parts of the planet as well as kinetic strikes and other uses of orbital weaponry, but since most of the old Cold War and World War Three installations were hidden under ground, they were getting around the nearly omnipotent eye of Doranian satellites and ships.

World War Three...

Sometimes he wondered how the world would have continued without that war between the NATO and the USSR. In the end the USSR had fallen, fragmented in the last year of the War. Even the Russian core nation had been fragmented, with just about all of Siberia succeeding from Russia to form the Siberian Republic. And a good half of what remained of the armed forces had gone with them.

And than the Doranians came. All that was left now was Kamchatka and its hidden bases.

And everyone had scrambled to find everything possible to defeat the Invaders and take back not only their Motherland, but also Earth. Their now allies in Scotland and the United States had their unique sources of technology, the Siberians had their own. Mostly it were old projects from the Cold War, frozen because they yielded no practical results like the Tesla Coil, other terminated, because their goals were too successful, like Project 331, codenamed Yuri.

But not only that. Hidden searches had found the remains of an alien space ship, of a race called Dilgar, in Lake Cheko, incidentally identifying the cause of the Tunguska event. But that was not all.

During the Invasion, the Kirov _Frunze_, had been able to take down a Doranian Drop ship at Vladivostok, through she used her entire arsenal of of Surface to Air missiles for that and was destroyed. It had allowed the remaining Siberians to find, salvage and take home the remains.

All that was the reason why K-210 _Krasniy Oktyab_ was now laying there, her gut opened to carry new systems and technologies that would make her not only a submarine, but also a space ship.

Doranian reactors were smaller and more powerful than the native reactors normally used for Typhoons. The screws wouldn't be removed, neither would their steam turbines. The Caterpillar however would be replaced with the reverse engineered gravitic drive of the Dilgar ship from Tunguska. The dual projection fins were already installed and following the entire submarines length like very stubby wings.

The torpedo tubes and the missile tubes were currently sort of reversed. Six missiles tubes were installed instead of the torpedo tubes and together with a small magazine would allow to fire modified R-39 missiles, while the missile deck was armed with Plasma Weapons and a working example of the Tesla Coil, through differently to Tesla's original design it needed four projection rods.

Just a few more month and the refit would be finished. It would be faster than building her sistership from scratch and the remains of several Shchuka-Bs.

Admiral Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius sighed as he stepped back from the hand rail, idly wondering if the Americans and the Britains were as lucky as they were, being able to build a space ship that could hopefully take the fight against the Doranians into space.


	11. Chapter 11

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 10

--

Sinclair breathed in deep as he glared at the Jack that had brought cake of all things. He thought that it broke the tension sowhat, but with the arrival of the third massive ship at Babylon 4, it was not very much.

The massive ship had appeared from something like giant bubble, if it could be called that, and had been dropped back in normal space with several large ships, some were the size of Nova's if Jack's data overlay was correct. Sinclair had to say that the large flat boxlike structures of these vessels looked deadly, through he doubted that they had much armor.

Jack had talked with the large ship it seemed and gotten a few informations, through Sinclair didn't know if it was a good idea to let this 'insane' AI do the talking. On the other hand Sinclair wasn't in any shape to do much talking. Even here with the Dilgar and the Colonians, he still had to fight down his headache that seemed to get worse rather than better.

At least they had a name to go with the large ship _Pride of Ferrol_, and a name for the aliens that had build it, Ferrons. And than there was something strange Jack had pointed out to Sinclair, the Colonials and the Dilgar. The language the Ferrons were speaking appeared to be a dialect of the language both Dilgar and Colonials were speaking.

To quote a Jack that had appeared among them, wearing a ridiculous Sherlock Holmes outfit, a mystery was afoot.

Right now a Ferron shuttle had docked with Babylon 4 and they were waiting for the mysterious Ferrons.

"Nag Mac Feegle!" came from one of the Jacks that manned one of the counters, pointing into the direction of the Ferrons that were entering the rebuild large atrium of Babylon 4.

"Naaa," came from another Jack." They are too large, to clean and don't smell like alcohol."

Sinclair had stopped to glare at one of the about two dozen Jacks that by now populated the atrium additionally to him, the Colonials and the Dilgar.

He eyed the Colonials for a moment, nursing his fifth mug of coffee in the last two hours he had been awake after several centuries of cold sleep. They seemed to twitch at every Jack that entered and stared at any offending Jack that made a comment of any kind.

The Dilgar on the other hand looked very much like beggers and seemed to want to slick away at every apparent attention that was directed at them.

After a moment he glanced at the Ferrons and did raise an eyebrow. Of course he had read a couple of Discworld novels, including 'Wee Free Men' and knew how Nag Mac Feegle looked like and he had to say that it was rather apt. There were more differences between his mental image of the 'Wee Free Men' and the Ferrons through.

Sure the Ferrons were blueskinned humanoids with red hair, but they were taller. With about four feet it wasn't much, but it was there. They were also wider over the shoulders than a normal human making them look squat and more like a piece of furniture in their stature. Their faces were surprisingly human with several of them wearing very elaborate red beards. They looked more like someone had dunked a fantasy dwarf in blue color.

Each had a rather professional look on their faces with those that were wearing weapons being more alert than most of the others. Their clothing appeared to be a form of uniform. A uniform that appeared to be rather tight and one piece at that. Thankfully it was padded at the right places. The wide collar of those uniforms made Sinclair wonder if those were Mechanical Counter pressure Suits, like the onces Earth Force had been developing before Clark took over the EA.

Sinclair couldn't help but note that the leader of the Ferrons appeared to be more of a corporate head than a military officer with the well kept appearance and hairstyle.

Curious was also the about red sphere hovering over his shoulder, measuring about six or eight inch. It bobbed up and down and a clear lens focussed on everyone for a brief moment.

Sinclair breathed in and downed the rest of his coffee. Human colonists, beggar cat people, blueskinned technocratic dwarfs... What next? Ninja Dragons? Pirate Wizards?

He shook his head clear and placed his mug on a counter, much to the dislike of the Jack occupying the counter. Than he walked over to the Ferrons.

"I am Jeffrey Sinclair," he said after a moment, repeating himself and trying not to appear like he was looking down at the Ferrons." The... caretaker of this station."

The Ferrons looked up to him and Sinclair had the feeling that this might be a problem in the future.

"Barin Makar," the Ferron with the corporate leader look, said and nodded slightly," I'm the commander of the _Pride of Ferrol_ and the Liberation Colony Mission."

He than pointed at the red sphere.

"This is Artemis, the AI of the _Pride_, or rather one of her remotes."

"I got better remotes!" one of the Jacks piped up while Sinclair had the feeling that the Colonials were not liking that part of the Ferrons.

"Liberation Colony Mission?" Sinclair wondered and Makar frowned.

"Our home system was invaded," he said after breathing in deep," by a race that call themselves Doranians. We are the only ones able to leave the system with the help of a prototype Faster Than Light drive. We were about to leave to a colonization mission anyway, so..."

Behind them he could hear the Dilgar leader Mal'ak breath in deep and hard before he walked closer.

"Force Leader Mal'ak," he introduced himself." The last colony of my people was totally destroyed by the Doranians. We are the last of the Dilgar after the sun of our homeworld became a nova."

Sinclair breathed in deep. He would need to ask if the Dilgar had a war before their homeworld got destroyed. He remembered the nova of Omelos being something of a dark moment of Earth Alliance. Several hundred ships had tried to leave the system prior to the Nova, but ships from the League had destroyed the Dilgar ships while Earth Force ships had stood by, unable to render any help thanks to their orders and despite their commanders wanting to help...

"Gods," he head Roslin say behind him and turned slightly.

The Colonials appeared to be god smacked by what the Dilgar and the Ferron had said.

"You can remain on this station," he heard a Jack say in a strange moment of seriousness, especially considering that it came from the Jack dressed up as a chef who had brought the cake.

The Jack eyed Sinclair for a moment, who could only nod.

"What?" Mal'ak asked out loud and swallowed." Why?"

Jack seemed to breathe in deep, something of a problem for a robot.

"Look, I'm trying to help you here," he said." This station was build as a place of peace and help. It would be wrong not to use it as it was intended to be used. And my core programming is to help people aboard this station. I intend to do that by helping you and allow you to live aboard this station."

Than he turned towards the Ferrons and the Colonials.

"I also like to extend this invitation to each of you, Mr. Makar and Mrs. President. You are welcome to live aboard Babylon 4. I have the complete infrastructure and life support systems for about one million people and several ten square kilometer of park area."

Than he chuckled.

"I guess I will have place to spare even."

The Dilgar and the Colonials now both looked god smacked, while Makar had turned around and talked to the remote of Artemis silently.

"What is this now?" another Jack suddenly asked out loud." Did this system all of a sudden become Grand Central Station or something?"

Sinclair looked up towards the large display to look at a split screen. One part of the display was showing a fleet of ships that included several warships by the looks of it, while the other was showing a single Hyperion class Cruiser. The only thing that was strange about the Hyperion was the large Jolly Roger painted on the hull and the light gray and red Dilgar War paint job.

Yes, his headache just got worse...

--

"Action stations! Action stations!"

That message coming from the speakers of the Internal Com combined with the flashes of orange lights in every corridor and cabin flashing up, caused everyone aboard _Yamato Takeru_ to run towards their stations in a hurry. It looked chaotic to see the skinsuited Shin'bi to run through corridors and jump over each other in rather spectacular displays of martial arts in every day life, but it was far from chaotic. In fact it was all well trained.

Admiral Takano frowned as he nearly dumped his head at on of the many airlocks through out the ship, silently cursing that the designers had forgone micro gravity in favor of artificial gravity. Even after two month on the newest ship of the Zaitaku Alliance, he wished back the micro gravity of the older ships.

"Report," he called out as he walked into Command & Control of the ship.

The large control center of the ship was bursting with activity and everyone of the displays along one of the bulkheads of the CNC. Each of the displays showed another image of the space they had just dropped into, while the main screen showed a tactical readout from the sensors.

"We dropped out of Slipstream in high orbit around the gas giant," Commander Tanashi said as he briefly looked up from his stations, his fingers still dancing across the touchscreen of his displays." And we dropped out just a thousand kilometers from a large concentration of vessels and two space stations of some kind."

Takano frowned and his eyes went back to the displays. Slowly but surely data was being displayed along with the images of the unknown ships. Idly he noted that the laser link network was established between the ships of his fleet and that all ships reported 'Action Stations' as well. The transports had gone into stealth mode and were slowly backing away from the fleet, trying to get far away from the unknown ships as possible, while still remaining under the protection of the fleet.

"Warships?" he wondered out loud.

"We are still analyzing the data," came the voice of the ships senior intelligence technician, Sub-Commander Sakai." But as far as we can tell we don't have to deal with many warships."

"Not many?"

Sakai slowly moved over to the large tactical plot in one of the corners of CNC, followed by Takano, while Tanashi remained to give orders to his ship.

Sakai's fingers moved over the touchscreen display of the tactical plot, drawing circles around the different parts of the unknown fleets.

"It seems that we are dealing with two major groups, one smaller and one single ship," he said and indicated to the first group of ships, surrounding the large flat station.

Small displays appeared on the tactical plot next to the parts, followed by some of the still incomplete data of them.

"One seems to be centered about this station. As far as we can tell its some sort of warship escort for the station."

Takano raised an eyeridge.

"Escorts for a station?"

Sakai nodded.

"It appears to be moving, slowly, but steady. Maybe some sort of mobile fleet base. Our scouts did encounter a mobile pirate fleet base in the Tabai system after all."

Takano nodded. He remembered reading the report about that base. He was glad that a small attack fleet they had send after it had found and destroyed it swiftly and without being seen, like a proper Shin'bi assault should be.

"The second group appears to be a civilian transport of some kind. All safe for two vessels appear to be civilian. A rather mixed fleet if you ask me. Both of the warships are at least twice the size of the _Yamato_. They have both launched fighters just after we dropped from slipstream so I'd say we are dealing with carriers. But we are also hit by targeting sensors, so I think they are heavily armed as well. My people are currently going over optical data to try and get any numbers."

Attack Carriers, Takano thought, an interesting concept. He remembered that the Admiralty had run a design contest on a similar concept several years ago, but no one had really managed to design a ship that could take over that role. It had all come down to ships that were either lightly armed carriers, or ships along the lines of the _Yamato_ that carried just a few more fighters.

"Than we have the second station and a single escort for it," Sakai continued." The station is most likely armed. Our first optical data tells us that there are several turrets along the station. It also seems to be split into two counter rotating sections inside each other. By the looks of it, both rotating sections are of the same mass and angular momentum, so they cancel each other out and allow the station to move freely. Combined with the massive engines in the back of the station, it's not unlikely that its a mobile fleet base like the flat station."

Takano smiled a little. They might have build stations like this as well, had the Pirates not decided to come and make their lives a problem.

"The station escort is the puzzling thing through," Sakai noted and caused Takano to look at the small display of the vessel that popped up on the tactical plot." Optical data tells us that its heavily damaged. And yet we are not seeing anything that would indicate any try from the station to repair that ship. Likewise the damage seems to be only superficially repaired. Not a ship anyone sane would try to fight with."

Takano raised an eyeridge again and eyed Sakai.

"You seem to forget who you are talking with, Sub-Commander," he noted with a slight smile.

Sakai chuckled a little. Takano had taken on a pirate ship with a heavily damaged frigate and won. Through he had lost half of his left wing and his right hand while doing so.

"Sorry, Admiral."

Takano nodded.

"Continue."

"And the singular vessel," he said and pointed at the single ship that was floating on the other side of the hodge podge of ships and stations." We know it..."

"We do?"

Sakai frowned.

"The energy emissions are consistent with contact Zero-12114, first encountered by the _Kanashi_ in the Tabai system shortly before the attach on the mobile station there. Highly probable of being a pirate ship. About the size of the _Yamato_, unknown weapons, but appear to be Quantum two technology."

Takano grit his teeth and he could feel how his eye began to twitch, while his lips curled up in a low growl. He hated Pirates with his very soul. They had abducted entire family and killed his father, while he had been in a training camp during his very early career.

"They have dropped from slipstream just a moment after us, but have up to now not made any movements that might indicate them being hostile."

Takano nodded.

"Keep a very close eye on that ship. If it makes a wrong maneuver or even pings us with its targeting sensors, I want to know."

"Yes, Admiral."

Takano breathed in deep and closed his eyes, absentmindedly massaging the area where the stump of his right arm connected to the artificial hand.

"Admiral, we are being hailed by the rotating station and contact Zero-12114."

Takano exhaled loudly and slowly turned around. This would not be very easy...

--

Harry was not a happy camper. Considering that he never really had been camping it was not hard to imagine. Okay, maybe the Quidditch World Cup might count, but that was debatable.

He felt rather uncomfortable sitting on The Chair, and he was beginning to feel fatigue from lack of sleep. Three years of slavery, combined with the treatment he had received from the Dusley however had helped him to simply brush away the fatigue when he needed to.

That Ariel had managed to get herself a new seat, mainly because of her tail, was another thing. Especially since Harry had to fight not to look at the Salasians rear. To make things worse, she was familiarizing herself with the controls and shifting in her seat and with it her sharp rear moved as well in a rather hypnotic dance.

There was also Alexander, or rather Aleksadr, he had switched his name a little after, once again, proclaiming that he and his 'Space Wolves' would do as Harry, their 'Emperor', would say. He was standing behind The Chair, like the proverbial rock in the storm. His arms where crossed and ready to reach for one hell of a gun and a rather large vibroblade he had both found in the armory.

"Dropping out of Slipstream in 5..." Enesby announced.

The flying macara was doing a good job, but Harry remembered hearing at least a dozen puns over the last half an hour since getting back onto the bridge.

Strangely enough everyone seemed to take it well that Enesby had proclaimed him to be the captain, but only time would tell what would happen later.

The thing was no one really knew what to do later, after finding out what was sending the Earth Alliance Emergancy beacon.

"1... Dropping from slipstream."

Instantly the main screen changed and a holographic display popped up. Enesby seemed to blink once or twice.

"Huh," he made," That's funny."

"What is it?" McPherson wondered as she looked at the screen and than at the hologram.

The main screen zoomed in to show a large green rotating station hovering in space.

"That is," Enesby noted." That station got an Earth Force IFF code. Not one that's in the database through. It's called Babylon 4 and is flagged as diplomatic station."

"Babylon?" Ariel wondered and eyed the station.

"Fitting name through," Enesby noted again." Considering that Babylon was the biblical city where all languages where created, the number of languages spoken on a diplomatic station does fit the name."

Sitting behind a currently empty station, Harry could hear Shinosuke breath in deep and stare at the display of the station. Harry wondered what went through his head. He thought he head him saying some thing about 'the fourth city of tongues' and 'build under the stars'.

"Anything else?" von Bismark asked and the display split up.

"Three different fleets and a single Dilgar scout."

"Dilgar?" McPherson asked surprised and looked at the display that showed what appeared to be a flying heap of junk.

"Yeah," Enesby notes." We also have a rather mixed fleet of civilian ships and two warships, one fleet concentrating around one massive ship, looks Hiigaaran..., and a fleet of..."

"Shin'bi ships," he was interrupted by Shinosuke." It's a fleet of Shin'bi ships."

His eyes grew as Enesby zoomed in on the ships with the rotating sections.

"It's the Sakugenchi fleet, lead by the _Yamato Takeru_ under Admiral Takano."

Enesby floated closer towards Shinosuke and made a snorting sound.

"Kind of fitting. Takano commanding the _Yamato_..."

Shinosuke blinked at Enesby.

"I'll tell you about World War Two later..." he said leaving Shinosuke to be only more confused.

But Shinosuke shook his head clear.

"I need to talk to the Yamato," he said." We need to tell him that we are not pirates."

"Sure," Harry said and breathed in deep. "What about Babylon 4 and the other fleet?"

"I..." Enesby stopped." We are being hailed by Babylon 4, captain."

Harry let go of a suffering sigh.


	12. Chapter 12

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 11

--

At the point Jeffrey Sinclair just wanted to get back into cold sleep.

"Me and my big mouth," he muttered under his breath.

He had taunted Murphy when he had wondered what came next. And Murphy had delivered. He had delivered exactly what he had asked for. Ninja Dragon and at least one Pirate Wizard, or at least close to it.

"Jeff," he heard the voice of one Jack from behind, one that was dressed in an Earth Force security uniform," try not to damage the bulkhead please? I heard that Minbari heads are quite hard."

Sinclair stopped banging his head against a convenient bulkhead, very well aware of the various strange looks he was getting at this moment, and stared at Jack.

"Thats all your fault," he said silently with a voice filled with loathing." It has to be..."

Jack grinned and held a mug, twice as large as normal mugs, of coffee under Sinclair nose, just as he was about to continue banging his head against the bulkhead.

"Pleace?" Jack wondered." You need to be sowhat presentable to the Shin'bi and Potter crew."

Sinclair all but ripped the mug from Jacks hands and gave him another loathing filled glare before emptying the mug half the way in one go. He breathed in deep.

The commander of the Hyperion just had to be Harry Potter, hadn't it? And from the info dump Jack had received and told Sinclair one Harry Potter who used to be a slave for the last three years and freed himself and some more slaves just a few hours ago.

Of course Sinclair remembered reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', it had been required reading during Junior High after all. And he remembered reading the other six novels and watching the movies as well. Once again this was showing that he was not in Kansas anymore.

He wondered how this Harry Potter would be like through.

"Here they come," Jack said with a grin and Sinclair looked up from his coffee.

In one corner several of the Colonial Marines had gone to try out the cake one Jack had brought, while the Ferrons and the Dilgar were talking about their mutual problems with these Doranians.

A pair of airlocks opened and as if Jack had choreographed it, a pair of Jacks, both dressed up like Yeomen Warders. Behind them were two different groups.

Sinclair knew that the Shin'bi had arrived with a shuttle, while the Hyperion had docked with the fixed port pylon of the inner cylinder.

He tried to suppress a sigh as he looked over to the Colonials who just stared at the Shin'bi, those who were eating cake, dropped it. He could literally hear them say 'Dragon' silently.

Sinclair himself was less prone to something like that. His time as commander of Babylon 5 had trained him to take aliens of all shapes and forms as more or less granted.

The Shin'bi were really looking like humanoid dragons, including wings and tails, with various skin or rather scale colors and hair on top of their heads. Before he had been forced to take what Jack said as face value but seeing them himself left him rather awed.

And all were dressed in dark colored or outright black skinsuits that bore close resemblance to the Ferron's skinsuits, but since skinsuits where based around the same principles that was not very strange.

Several of the Shin'bi were armed, the helmets of their skinsuits closed and Sinclair could see several strange distortions in the air next to the apparent leader.

"Some sort of thermoptic camouflage," the EA Jack noted next to him." Most defiantly Ninjas."

The other group was very mixed. A young man in uniform, most likely Harry Potter, an elder man in uniform, of about the same age as Sinclair himself, maybe a few years younger, one massive man in some sort of medival armor, a skunklike alien in skinsuit, two Shin'bi, a blueskinned alien, who looked very much like a stereotypical nerd and twitched like one, and a flying Maraca with a strangely smiling face.

The leading Shin'bi of the Shin'bi group eyed the pair of Shin'bi in the other group, nodding silently.

Sinclair sighed and slowly walked up to the two groups, while the other groups came closer.

"I am Jeffrey Sinclair," he said after a moment, repeating himself once again." The... caretaker of this station."

The Shin'bi who seemed to be in command eyed him for a moment and again glanced over to the other pair of Shin'bi.

"Admiral Takano of the Yamamoto clan," he introduced himself." Leader of the Sakugenchi fleet."

Than he looked over to the young man in uniform who twitched slightly, while the Maraca could be heard snickering.

"Harry Potter," he said and breathed in deep." The... captain of the _Maru_..."

"Quite official at that," the Maraca said with a smirk and than seemed to wink at one of the Jacks.

As if on command the Jacks all around began to smirk as well and one or two were outright laughing as a Jack dressed up in a robe with star and moon print and a pointed hat, with 'Wizzard' printed on it, burst into the atrium and made a beeline towards Potter.

The Wizzard Jack grabbed Potter's hand and began to shake it rapidly.

"Welcome aboard, Captain," he said and grinned madly." What are your first orders as new commander of Babylon 4?"

Sinclair, Potter and the others of his group stared at the Jack that was still shaking the heavily scarred hand, still grinning madly.

"Wha?" Potter managed to make and than swallowed.

" What do you mean 'new commander'?" he than yelled as he continued to stare wide eyed at the Jack.

The Jack just continued to grin and shake the hand.

"Oh, you are quite officially the Captain of the Maru under Earth Force rules, signed by Enesby and countersigned by me, making you an Earth Force officer," he noted and laughed so what manically." As Commander Sinclair isn't an Earth Force officer anymore, you are the senior Earth Force officer on this station and as such the commander of the station."

Potter and Sinclair continued to stare at the still handshaking Jack.

"What? How? When? Why?" Potter managed to get out.

Jack frowned a little.

"I certainly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition..." he noted and seemed to wait for something.

"HAH!" came from one of the entrances to the atrium and three Jacks dressed in red robes stood there.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" he first said." Our chief weapon is surprise!"

Neither he, nor the other two were able to say much more, as their heads exploded in rather spectacular displays after being hit by a PPC blast each.

"You killed Kenny!" came from one Jack.

Sinclair slowly turned around to look at Potter, who had a PPC in his hand, pointed in the general direction of the now collapsing headless Jacks.

"You Bastard!" came from another Jack.

Potter was breathing in deep and slowly put away the PPC.

"Good to know that my ward targeting works with guns too..."

--

Admiral Takano eyed the Shin'bi standing opposite to him. Behind them, the other groups were talking amoung themselves and Sinclair was speaking with Potter and several others, whole Takano's adjutant was taking care of the Shin'bi side of things.

"Pirates?" he wondered as he looked at the other Shin'bi, one of the two that were in Potters group.

"Yes," was the answer," two weeks after you and the Sakugenchi fleet left Zataki, uncle Takano."

Takano grit his teeth and breathed in deep, furrowing his wings slightly. It just had to happen. A pirate attack just when a third of the fleet left.

"I'm glad you're okay, Shinosuke," he said and sighed." I hope the pirates didn't have fun with you..."

Shinosuke frowned.

"They didn't," he said and sighed." At least until after they began to paralyze us and killed Master Naruto."

Again Takano breathed in deep and his face grew hard.

"How?"

"A sniper from their landing ship," Shinosuke said." And they used a suppression collar on me."

"You're his heir," Takano noted." You are the Master of his school than. You have finished your training after all."

Takano crossed his eyes and nodded to himself.

"I will send you all back to Zaitaku with a scout than," he said after a moment." You have to take over the..."

Takano didn't come any further as Shinosuke interrupted him.

"I can't," he simply said and looked his great uncle into the eyes.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

Shinosuke looked over to where Potter was speaking with Sinclair and the strange android and the floating robot.

"I have found the Shogun."

All of Takano's thoughts came to a screeching halt. Of course he knew that Shinosuke was the Shogun's kanpaku, but that he had actually found him...

"What?" he asked, using every bit of self control he had so that he didn't scream that question, staring at his grand nephew.

"I have found the Shogun."

Shinosuke was still looking towards Sinclair and Potter, the later being busy to try and strangle one of the Jacks, who in turn flailed around his limbs.

"Who?" Takano asked and for a moment his eyes looked at von Bismark and than at Sinclair. The former was pulling the Jack away from Potter, while the later was keeping Potter away from the Jack.

"Harry Potter," Shinosuke said and sighed.

Takano blinked, looking at the red face of Potter who was screaming on top of his lungs in that language of his. A moment later and a loud scream of 'Reducto' later another Jack was falling to the ground in a pile of junk.

"Are you sure?"

Shinosuke sighed and slowly nodded.

"Yes, I know all oracles concerning the Shogun, three of them how he will be found. He has already completed two of these oracles completely and nearly completely finished the main oracle about his discovery."

Takano continued to eye Potter, who now looked at the flying robot with murder in his eyes.

"I think it would be better if we tell him later," Takano said and sighed." He looks a little stressed..."

--

Not far away from Babylon 4, in orbit around a cold but terrestrial planet dubbed New Caprica by one group and Sakugenchi by another, the Dilgar fleet hovered.

Of course they had heard about the meeting with the other fleets and the station, but landings were already done.

_Olympus Pride_ was one of the most heavily damaged ships that had managed to flee from the massacre the Doranians had made among the surviving Dilgar. It was a miracle that she had managed to make it this far. But it was not to be.

_Olympus Pride_ should have dropped through the atmosphere of the planet, acting as housing for the Dilgar that would soon after her drop to the planet. She didn't make it.

Her shields were not even barely able to take the stress and heat of reentry and the multiple cracks, rents and tears in the hull did their own. As a wall of plasma raced through the corridors of the ships, it destroyed several already damaged control circuits of the ships reactors.

Soon the reactor lost containment and detonated with the force of a high yield thermonuclear weapon.

Thankfully only the twelve members of the minimal crew died in the detonation of the ship.

However the large amounts of radiation reacted with the unique energy field that filled the solar system, resulting in a spectacle that could be instantly seen over several hundred lightyears. But only if you were happening to look at the right direction and the right frequencies.

--

Light years away two different parties happened to see the spectacle.

One was a group of star shaped chrome glistening vessels, the other a mixed group of large spaceships that cruised through space since ancient times, looking for a little peace from an ancient war among themselves.

--

Harry sighed and leaned back. About half an hour ago, they had all moved to one of the conference rooms of the station, in the wake of him trying to destroy as many Jacks as he could. It was safer this way, both for the Jacks and him.

Currently there was only one Jack in the room, keeping as far away from him as he could, and putting several people between him and Harry.

Moving to the conference room had been the moment Harry had stopped to care too much about having been put in command of the station as well. Fatigue was coming to him fast and he just wanted to get through this and than sleep as long as he could.

"I don't see why it would be a problem of sharing the planet," Jack said, the current remote acting rather sane." It about the size of Earth and the even if only about a fifth of the surface is ice free, there is enough space for everyone."

Harry looked over to the Colonials, Roslin was breathing in deep.

"One question," she said after a moment." I wanted to ask this earlier. But... you know of Earth?"

Harry noticed that Sinclair raised an eyebrow as Jack answered.

"Yes, this station was build by the Earth Alliance, a star nation based around Earth."

Rolsin smiled a little and looked at Adama.

"That means that we can get help from Earth against the Cylons."

"I doubt it," Harry talked up and sighed." Earth was invaded by the Doranians three years ago."

The Dilgar and Ferrons looked over to him, their faces showing that they knew how that felt.

"I was born on Earth, but the Doranians took me as a slave during the initial invasion. At this moment I don't have any idea what is going on on Earth."

Sinclair frowned.

"That we can't do much more than remain here," he noted.

Harry noted that Takano and Shinosuke looked at each other for a moment and it seemed like they had an entire conversation just with their looks alone.

"Which brings us back to the planet," Mal'ak said.

"Like I said," Jack noted." There is enough space for everyone on the planet. In the six hundred years this station has been here,I took the chance to do a full survey of it to pass time."

Pretty much everyone looked at him and he shrugged.

"Six hundred years are a long time to be bored..." he said than than coughed." Well... I have found several places that are very useful for colonization. Relatively high temperatures throughout the year, good soil, places with ores and other natural resources. Everything that is needed for the fledging colony."

"Maybe it would be best to build up a single colony rather than several," Makar noted." It would bundle resources from everyone. It would be the best for the Dilgar and the Colonials, who have very little in the way of resources."

Harry nodded to himself, it sounded like a good idea.

"That may be the case," Takano spoke," but that would take away resources from us and you Ferrons."

Makar chuckled a little.

"We don't have any problems with resources or manufacturing," he said." The fabbers of the _Pride of Ferrol_ can build nearly everything and we have left several mining ships in the asteroid belt."

"Technology," Mal'ak said." We Dilgar would be willing to trade out technology for help."

Harry looked around. The Ferrons and the Shin'bi looked interested, but he was a little more interested in the Colonials. Roslin and Adama were whispering to each other and it looked like they were in a heated, through low voiced discussion.

A few moments later Roslin looked up.

"I will have to talk with the Quorum of the Twelve about this," she said.

"And an election to win," Jack piped up with a grin.

Roslin shot him a dirty look and Harry sighed.

"Jack, is there a way to move the station to the planet?"

"Yeppers," Jack answered cheerfully." This is a mobile station. No problem moving it at all. We could enter orbit around the planet in four days. Faster if someone could help..."

"The gravitic field of our Warp drive can be expanded to cover Babylon 4," Makar noted after a moment." It would reduce travel time down to twelve hours."

Harry nodded.

"I think we should continue tomorrow. I need some sleep..."

Much sleep, he thought to himself.


	13. Chapter 13

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 12

--

Harry sighed and closed his eyes as he leaned further back in one of the very comfortable chairs of the Observation Lounge of Babylon 4. As he opened his eyes again, he could see the sphere of the terrestrial planet they all had decided to call Liberty pass the windows as the inner cylinder of Babylon 4 slowly rotated around itself.

The last four days had been strange, problematic, insane and at the same time the best he had in years, hell in his entire life.

As Babylon 4 rotated slowly and he looked out of the windows, he glanced at the Ferron mother ship and the still separate fleets floating around the station. The Dilgar and Colonial fleets were mostly empty, safe for the dedicated warships, the people having moved to Babylon 4 for better living conditions.

A little more orbit wards he could see the thrusters of Shin'bi construction vessels as they moved to build their fleet base from prefabricated pieces they had brought with them.

Harry was glad that he, with help of von Bismark and Sinclair had managed to get everyone to work with each other.

He found it a little strange that the Shin'bi followed him without much problems. On the other hand the idea of sharing their technologies had interested the Shin'bi a little more than the others. Considering what Harry knew of the Shin'bi and the pirate attacks on their planet he had an idea why they were keen on better drives, shields and weapons.

From what he had seen of the Dilgar would have been willing sell their souls to get anywhere where they were left in peace and could breathe through without having to worry about how they should survive the next day. Harry had the feeling that they focussed their thanks on him, through it was Jack who had invited them earlier. In fact he was willing to bet that they would be ready to follow him to the very gates of hell.

The Ferrons were a rather pragmatic bunch. He could see the hate glowing in their eyes when they thought about the Doranians and the invasion of their system. Without much doubt they would take the technology they got out of the deal to build powerful warships and try to retake their system from the damed cats. But at the same time they would use the opportunity to build up a working colony and try to live peacefully with several alien races. Harry thought that they would be the driving force behind the colony on Liberty's surface.

And than there were the Colonials. They were... human. There was never a doubt in that. They looked like humans, they behaved like humans and according to a genetic analysis, they were human, through their ancestors had been removed from Earth a few thousand years ago.

Harry had had the chance to talk with a few of them, mostly President Roslin, who had been reelected due to finding a lead to Earth, and Admiral Adama. But the talks had stopped the Colonials dead in their tracks. Their holy land, Earth was over run by aliens and they couldn't go back to their worlds because of homicidal robots. Even if Roslin had been reelected, they didn't know what they could do. So they settled to settling on Babylon 4 and Liberty.

That left Harry alone with his thoughts, trying to pierce together what had happened in the last few days and how he had been roped into command of a space ship AND a space station. Just as well as ending up as if he was Jesus himself to the Dilgar and a bunch of 'Space Marines' who called him 'Emperor'.

Why had they used that honorific in the presence of several of the Dilgar and Jack?

Not only had the Dilgar stared to call him Emperor as well, thinking that he was some sort of governmental figure or something, but Jack had started to use remotes of him dressed up like Imperial officers from Star Wars when he had to deal with Harry and always used 'Emperor'...

There was a short blue flash outside the window, not unlike the very short blue flash he had seen when Sirius had apparated into a dark room once. There was another short blue flash like the first about a second afterwards and Harry shook his head. Maybe it was an asteroid or something.

--

The Cylon Raider had only one thing in its minimalistic mind.

Jump. Scan. Jump.

With a blue flash it appeared not far from the Colonial fleet, flying into the direction of the mostly empty fleet and scanned for a brief moment, than it jumped back away to its Basestar.

The mind was too narrow minded as was its scan. It only showed the ships of the Colonial fleet, never even once noticing the mass of ships and the large station hanging not too far away from it in space.

Jack, Artemis and several of the Shin'bi intelligence operators noted the Raider however...

--

"Am I interrupting?"

Harry turned away from the large windows and smiled a little at Ariel as she entered the Observation Lounge. By now he was sort of used to how she looked in her skinsuit. It still had some effects on him through.

"Not really," he answered, like Ariel using English." Just thinking."

Ariel slowly walked over to him.

"That place free?"

Harry looked around in the otherwise empty Lounge and smirked a little.

"At the moment, yes," he noted.

Ariel smiled a little and sat down, making sure that the large handgun, Harry had set to see her without it again, was out of the way and her tail not squeezed into an uncomfortable position.

"My people have looked over Earth for a long time," she said after a moment," longer than the Jurians in fact. The Invasion of the Doranians, the slavery. How did you make it through it?"

Harry sighed. Sometimes he wondered about that himself.

"I don't really know myself," he said with a sigh, following the disk of Liberty once again on its way across the window pane." But I guess that I'm more or less used to the strange and a miserable life."

Ariel blinked and looked at him.

"How so?"

"I'm a wizard," he said." You know magic and all that rot."

Ariel nodded.

"Yes," she said." Everyone in the galaxy knows that magic really exists."

"Good," Harry noted and snorted." No one on Earth did. Maybe they did a few hundred years back, but they normals decided that burning wizards and witches was a fun passtime."

He breathed in again and shook his head.

"Anyway," he continued." I never knew that I was a wizard until I was eleven years old. All I knew was that I was different. That I was not normal. That I was a freak. At least that is what my aunt and uncle always told me. My parents died very early, killed by an evil dark wizard, through my aunt and uncle told me they were drunks and hit a tree with their car."

"They knew about magicians?" Ariel wondered.

"Yes," Harry said with a nod." They knew. And they hated wizards, my aunt because she was most likely jealous of my mother that she was the witch in the family and my uncle because it was 'not normal'. They didn't like me very much either."

He sighed again.

"I think that they actually hated my guts. Only some threats from friends of my father and mother held them back from simply placing me out in the woods or something. I had to live in a cupboard under the stairs before finding out that I was a wizard. And afterwards in a very spartan small room with bars on the window."

Harry looked over to Ariel who frowned a little.

"How can you be sure that they hated you?" she asked.

Harry chuckled sadly.

"I only really found out about it when I talked with a friend, Hermione Gardner, about World War Three. You know about World War Three?"

Ariel nodded.

"I do. The Sovier Union attacked the NATO."

Harry smiled.

"I see you do know a little about Earth," he said and than shook his head." It was during the Second Battle of Britain. I remember that large Soviet Bomber squadrons were starting to drop bombs on Britain. That was the only time I was allowed to sleep outside in the garden. With not very much other than a sheet, but it was summer and the weather was good. I only later found out that my aunt and uncle hid in the cellar with my cousin."

Harry smiled a little.

"I still can remember the lights dancing across the sky. I didn't know much about the war back than. I just found it nice, through the rumbling, nearly deafening sounds of the bombers was not. Here and there a ball of light would appear and a comet drop to the Earth. It was a great show. Only later I knew that each of the balls of light was a bomber or a fighter exploding and people being killed."

Ariel blinked.

"Why were they in the cellar?"

Harry frowned.

"Because the Government had given out nuclear warning. They expected the Soviets to drop nuclear bombs over London or any other place. And my aunt and uncle knew. They send me out into the garden to sleep there, because maybe the Soviets would drop a nuke close to us and I would maybe take a deadly or at least dangerous dose of radiation."

Harry chuckled a little and shrugged, while Ariel gaped at him.

"I guess they really did hate me. You can believe that I was furious when I pierced all that together. I was ready to kill them or do what they did to me. But I calmed down eventually. One of the good things about going to a boarding school, I guess. You have time to cool down before doing something stupid. Besides..."

He sighed again.

"If I had done anything like that, I wouldn't have been better than them. Or better than a certain evil dark wizard. They only acted because of hate, anger and fear. Much like Tom... I didn't want to do the same..."

He sighed and stretched a little looking back out of the window, watching the _Pride of Ferrol_ moving pas the window. Next to him Ariel was silent.

"I guess life with the Dusleys made me able to take what the Doranians threw at me and remain sane and unbroken. My spoiled cousin only lasted about three month."

"Do you hate your aunt and uncle?"

"I guess not," he said." Not really after I saw the Doranians kill them."

Again Ariel was silent for several moments.

"The galaxy could need more people thinking like you."

Harry raised an eyebrow and looked at her surprised.

"Oh?" he made.

"Out there," she said and pointed out of the window and into space behind the boundaries of the system," its 'might makes right'. If you have power you can bully others around. Hate, anger and fear rules pretty much everyone."

She breathed in deep.

"Take my homeworld and our about thirty colony worlds. A small wealthy independent nation just outside of Jurian space. Five years ago, the Jurians came and decided that we were now part of the Jurian Empire. We never had any problems with them, until than. Just because they are Quantum 3 civilization, they think they can push others around, just like the Minbari."

She sighed and leaned back in her own seat.

"Sometimes I wish that someone would go and make the galaxy a better place, without all slavery and the other crap."

Harry just nodded and sighed. Someone should really do that. Little did he know that the thought was slowly sinking into his subconsciousness.

--

Enesby eyed the man that was standing at the entry to the Observation Lounge. He himself had listened to the talk between Harry and Ariel, but mostly it was because of the man who was standing closer to the entry way and listened to them himself.

Enesby frowned a little. Because of the rather private setting, Jack had no remotes or other ways of surveillance equipment down here, just like he hadn't any in private rooms.

That brought Enesby down here, watching as the man slowly moved his hand towards a gun the man was hiding in his clothes.

"Brother Cavil?" he asked and floated a little closer towards the man.

The man jerked up and turned around, drawing the gun to point it at Enesby.

"Or should I say, Number One?"

Cavil's eyes widened more before narrowing.

"I'm not a Cylon," he said, glaring at the Maraca shaped robot.

Enesby chuckled and than smirked mockingly.

"If you are not," he wondered," Why do my scans reveal silicon based neural cells throughout your brain and spinal column? The same Jack and I found in Sharon and Gina? Or do the Colonials possess medical knowledge we don't know of?"

Cavil took a step back, pulling his gun a little higher.

"What are you going to do now?" Cavil asked." Telling your slavers?"

Enesby raised a holographic eyebrow and chuckled.

"Slaver? Considering that Harry used to be a slave until four days ago, that is rich."

Forcefields from the lower part of Enesby's body reached out, plucking the gun from Cavil hand in a quick movement, before unloading it with surprisingly well defined orders to his generators.

"But I know why you think that I'm a slave."

"What than?" Cavil asked, crossing his arms in defiance, through he took another step back, away from the entry of the Observation Lounge." Kill me?"

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already," Enesby noted and raised the unarmed gun." I could have done the same with you meaty little head. I just want to talk. And stop you from killing my captain."

"How do you know that I'm a number One?"

Enesby chuckled and floated closer towards Cavil, placing the gun and the magazine on the ground.

"For a robotic race, or rather cybernetic race, you have lousy firewalls," Enesby said, one again showing a mocking grins." If I was able to hack you, so is everybody else and you are going to end up where you stared, being servitors and slaves to another race."

Cavil narrowed his eyes and glared at Enesby.

"Why should I believe you?"

Enesby showed the face people normally showed when they shrugged their shoulders.

"You can believe me. Or you don't. I don't care. You have listened to Harry and Ariel."

Cavil said nothing and just glared at Enesby.

"And if I have?"

"The galaxy is a large and dangerous place," Enesby noted, ignoring his own rhetoric question." Out there might makes right. The Cylons don't have very much in the way of 'might'. Okay, you have the Hyperlight drive, lots of nukes and cannon fodder Centurions."

Cavil's eye twitched a little as Enesby mentioned the Centurions.

"But that's it," Enesby continued, looking like he didn't notice the twitch." No shields, no directed energy weapons. And, like I said, lousy firewalls. Even a Quantum One civilization can hack you once they find out that you are a cybernetic race. And after hacking they can easily reprogram you. You now, serving them and the like. Just like you did before your, ahm..., ancestors rebelled. Only this time no rebellion, no way out."

Enesby seemed to thing and slowly floated around Cavil's head.

"I guess the Six models are going to make great export goods for the slave market. And you look like you could do nice as teacher or something along that line."

"Never!" Cavil spat back at Enesby.

"Never say never," Enesby said." You know what? You Cylons, me, Jack and Artemis are maybe the only free cybernetic intelligences out there in the galaxy. Every other of us is enslaved by one race or another, that it makes working for the Colonials before the Cylon Rebellion like a paradise."

Enesby slowly moved away from Cavil.

"Think about it. Take your time, eat something, go to the gardens, watch a movie or go to the firing range. I think we are going to talk again later."

What that Enesby moved through the entry into the Observation Lounge, leaving Cavil behind. He picked up the gun and than shot a glare at the entry of the Observation Lounge before leaving.


	14. Chapter 14

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 13

--

Chief Galen Tyrol sighed. Part of him wanted to freak out about the aliens they had met, just as well as Cylons that were not really Cylons.

"Something wrong?" Takeshi inquired.

"It's nothing," Tyrol noted and eyed the alien engineers that had more or less fallen into his hangar deck, looking at everything.

There was Takeshi, a honest to the gods bronze colored dragon. He was snooping through everything more so than his other coleagues. He was extremely interested in the Hyperlight drive and Tyrol was willing to bet, actually he had a bet running with Starbuck, that the Shin'bi would be willing to give them several of their technologies for it.

The second was Balen Noral, a Ferron. It was hard not to look down at the maybe four feet tall blue man with the rather impressive red beard. The large polished wrench he carried around was more than enough as a reminder that the small man was very strong and didn't react very kindly to being looked down at. He had used that wrench to crack Hot Dogs kneecap after he had made a joke about the Ferrons size.

The last wad Na'tal, one of the Dilgar. He looked just like most Colonials. The Dilgar had gone through something similar to the Colonials and Tyrol knew how the Dilgar had to feel.

"Okay," Tyrol said and stopped at a workbench where a partly dissembled machine was spread out." This is a Hyperlight generator. Its from one of our Raptors that is currently in maintenance."

"Its small..." Noral noted and actually had to pull himself up on the workbench to get a good look." Is that really an FTL drive?"

"A decently designed slipstream drive can be put into a fighter," Takeshi said and moved around the workbench to get a closer look.

"Or Warp Drive is as large as this entire pod," Noral said and waved his hand around to cover the entire hangar deck," At minimum."

Tyrol nodded.

"Its only a small drive," he said." _Galacticas_ Hyperlight Generator is as large as this part of the hangar."

"Could you, theoretically, use this drive for a large ship?"

Tyrol shook his head.

"No," he said." As far as I know you need to have the exactly right FTL spool for the drive or it won't work. You can't use a larger or a smaller one, through there are tolerances of a few percent."

He picked up a small cylinder from the workbench. It was maybe a foot in length and six inch in diameter.

"This is the spool for the Raptor," he said," Other spools for larger ships vary in size and actual shape."

"What's it made of?" Na'tal asked." Anything... exotic?"

Tyrol shrugged his shoulder and handed the spool to Takeshi.

"Its build up around a Tylium crystal. The Crystals are a very rare and very stable form of Tylium. Its embedded into a shell of a special plastic, through I know that the Saggitarions are using wood as shell for the crystal."

The eyes of the three engineers turned to him.

"Wood?"

"It needs to be an organic material. I don't know exactly why, through."

Takeshi handed the spool to Noral.

"The plastic is covered by geometric lines that are lined with layers of pure lead, pure tin, pure carbon and smaller Tylium crystals where the lines cross. Its again embedded into a lead shell and surrounded by a supraconducting coil."

Noral raised an eyebrow and than handed the spool to Na'tal.

"Interesting design," he noted." Is it in a fixed assembly?"

Tyrol shook his head.

"No, its hinged into a gyroscope as the rotor. The spin axis of the spool is directed into the vector of the jump, while the direction of the spin indicated the direction of the jump. The distance is made up of the momentanum of the spinning spool, the strength of the electromagnetic field of the coil and the amount of Tylium fuel pumped into the spool chamber to ignite on the jump."

Again the three engineers looked at him, through Na'tal carefully placed the spool on the workbench.

"You need fuel? And pump in into the spool chamber?"

Tyrol nodded and shrugged.

"Yes," he said." As far as I know the fuel disappears or something. All that remains after a jump is a a slimy gunk that begins to gathers in the entire chamber."

He pointed to a bucket that contained a gray slimy goo.

"It's not dangerous, but annoying. You need to clean up the Hyperlight drive regularly and replace ball bearings and other moving parts. The gunk gets everywhere and clogs the moving parts."

Tyrol grinned a little.

"Always good to punish your subordinates with. That gunk is hard to clean out of clothes."

--

Kevyn Andreyasn eyed the assembly in front of him. The first prototype of the Teraport system.

He smirked a little. It had been a very challenging work to create a technomagical device that acted as a portkey or aparating device. It was a little crude, but the first test had been successful. It hadn't been far, only from one lab to another, but it had been successful nonetheless.

Now he looked at the opened device, it was about the size of a fridge and actually had been build into a fridge for the lack of a better container. He frowned a little as the unidentified gray goo that now leaked out of the converted fridge. So that was what remained of the potion he had asked Snape to brew together.

He rolled his eyes as he thought of Snape. Fucking bastard, he thought to himself, glad that they had worked out the kinks of the potion and that someone else could now brew it in larger amounts.

He chuckled a little at the thought of Doctor Markus, who was currently busy to try and adapt modern chemical engineering technologies to brew potions. Maybe he should ask him to find a way to create the teraport potion in larger amounts.

Kevyn eyed the open converted fridge again.

The gyroscope around the core seemed to be okay, through it was also covered in the gray goo. The motors that spun the core might need some work, but nothing that couldn't be corrected.

Than he frowned, noting a black spot in the coil surrounding the outer lead shell. It seemed that the copper wire had burned through. He might as well remove it and take a closer look at the core itself. Especially the wooden shell with the metal lined runes engraved in it, as well as the inner crystal core made up of CV Embinium.

He sighed and shook his head. It looked like he had to redesign the magnetic coil.

Oh well... Back to the drawing board.

Through the goo might be useful to get back at the Weasley twins...

--

Aleksandr stood on a small hill in the large inner Park Area of Babylon 4 and looked down from it to his Marines, training with each other in the small area Jack had given over to them. As long as they were not going to destroy to much, Jack had little problems with them using scrap for target practice to get used to the plasma guns they had found in the armory of the _Maru_.

A part of him marveled at the fact that these plasma guns didn't blow up after some time or heated up.

He turned his head slightly to look over to the spectators they were drawing and he grinned as he thought how they had to look to them. A large number of the spectators happened to be Dilgar, through there were a few Ferrons, Shin'bi and humans among them as well.

Than he breathed in deep as he looked back towards his Marines, once again trying to find the reason why the Warp had deposited them here, far in the past, long before the Dark Age of Technology. And once again he could only come to a single answer.

The Emperor had chosen them, a small group of Space Marines of the Space Wolf Thirteenth Company, to go to the past and protect Him in the troublesome past.

It was a great honor, but at the same time they were only six Space Wolfs. While they were now acting as the bodyguards for the Young Emperor, their numbers were to low to serve him beyond being bodyguards.

Aleksandr needed to make a decision.

He breathed in deep and that whistled loudly, followed by a loud call for one his his Marines.

"Gunnar!" he called out, his voice able to be heard over the sound of the plasma guns and causing several of the spectators to flinch.

One of the Marines turned and looked at him before nodding.

The Marine in question used to be a Drill Sergeant of the US Marines in his previous life before he ended up in the 'gentle' hands of the previous owner of the _Maru_ and ended up as her werewolf pet after being bitten by Alexander, now Aleksandr. Incidentally he used to train Space Marines in his memories, through his subconsciousness still rewrote it.

Gunnar put away his plasma gun and walked over to Aleks.

"Yes?"

Aleks eyed the Marines standing in front of him, remembering seeing Gunnar train recruits before they were ready to become Marines, through his own mind was just making up these memories.

"We need more brothers," Aleks noted and eyed the spectators for a moment." I have decided that we are going to train more Marines."

Gunnar grinned a little.

"I would like to train Marines again," he said." But are we going to find recruits that are worthy to become Space Wolfs?"

"I am pretty sure we will," Aleks said." I have found more than one of those who were worthy on Fenris. I will find more here."

Gunnar nodded.

"But there are not many humans here," he noted.

Aleks chuckled and than laughed a little louder.

"I have seen a few of the Dilgar who seem to be worthy," he said to Gunnar." I think we will have to find out if they can be turned into Space Marines. If not, they will make good Stormtroopers after going through your training."

Gunnar frowned a little but nodded. To their changed minds the process to create a Space Marine, or rather a Space Wolf, was different to that described by Games Workshop. Having been werewolfs until their change into Space Marines thanks to magic, their werewolf curses had been changed, much like themselves. To them a Space Wolf had to bite a recruit to turn him into a Blood Claw.

"Thought I think we might be surprised by the Dilgar."

--

Barin Makar, the commander of the _Pride of Ferrol_, looked at the holographic display in front of him and sighed. They had had three years time to design and develop new vessels, new warships that were meant to be used once the colony was build up.

The scientists aboard had needed some time to pull themselves together, but in the end they had ended up with several new technologies developed during the times they had needed to come here. Some had included a new Sub-light drive that was essentially an advanced gravitic engine that implemented a few systems from the Warp Drive. Theoretically the new drive could accelerate to lighspeed in less than three hours.

Another was the use of a Warp field as effective shielding. The Warp field would manipulate gravity and bend away energy beams from the hull.

However, due to the limited amount of trained crews, these ships needed to be highly automated. The Battlecruiser, a massive 300 million ton ship that was nearly two and a half kilometers long, had only a crew of 50, the rest being controlled by robotic drones to take care of just about everything, controlled by an advanced AI. Artemis had already created a few descendants of hers that would run these ships.

Makar sighed. He wished that they had been able to build at least one or two of these ships, but even the systems of the _Pride of Ferrol_ were not able to build these ships in one go, like the Frigates and Corvettes they had build.

While the Warp field allowed to undock ships from the construction slip, it was impossible to combine the modules of the larger designs needed to build these massive ships. Not to mention the rather limited amounts of materials they had available.

But now these designs might be outdated, through he knew that they were able to be redesigned to implement new technologies. These ships had more than enough space after all, everywhere where they carried massive amounts of armor at the moment.

The Dilgar had already given away many of their technologies to them and the Shin'bi. Shields, a slipstream drive and an array of weapons where the technologies that were of the most interest.

The Shin'bi where a little less willing to give away their technologies, but after handing them the plans of Ferron gravitics and reactors, Dilgar shields and Slipstream as well as the Colonial hyperlight drive, they had given their stealth technologies to the others. It turned out that they had very effective stealth technologies, designed to make a ship all but invisible to most races out in the galaxy. The only problem was that none of these technologies could hide the heat signature of the ships that grew by 25 percent one activated. So if someone used heat sensors the Shin'bi stealth was useless.

Than there where the Colonials. The only technology that was really of interest was their Hyperlight drive. Any drive that could be used for tactical short range jumps was worth its wight in Howalgonium, through the Shin'bi knew it as CV Embinium, the Colonials as Tylium and Jack of Babylon 4 as Quantum 40.

The last was Babylon 4 and Jack. There was not much technology he could hand out, but the Interceptor and E-Web technologies, as well as their Jump Drive was very interesting and very useful to defend against the Doranian fighters.

Makar looked at his display again.

His people would redesign the ships they had and needed to rebuild those frigates and corvettes they had. On the other hand, it freed up the construction slips for other things.

Like building a ship yard or two additionally to the prefabricated mobile shipyard the _Pride_ was hiding in her large hull. They only needed to take the parts and build it up, while the slips build another shipyard or two.

He scratches his chin. Maybe they should help the Shin'bi to modify their own shipyard as well? It would defiantly build up trust.

--

There were several Jacks standing in the CIC of Babylon 4, working on the numerous stations. Most of them where rather normal, but the one that had taken command was different.

For once the Jack had a black skin color, through he didn't look out of place with it. The other differences were his black on white suit, the black sunglasses and the massive afro haircut.

Suddenly there where numerous new contacts of the sensors, having appeared in the same way as the Colonial fleet and the small one man fighter earlier.

The black Jack with the afro crossed his arms.

"The pool is closed," he proclaimed, speaking of the betting pool that had jumped up between the various Jacks and Artemis. "Due to Cylons!"

Than he grinned as red alarm lights flashed out through Babylon 4 and the weapons of the massive station began to seek their targets.


	15. Chapter 15

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 14

--

Artemis was thinking. Sure she had to make sure that everything aboard the _Pride of Ferrol_ was going okay, assist several of the scientists and engineers with their work, but since she was at home in the vast interconnected network of the massive mother ship, she had more than enough capacity for idly thoughts.

Her current thoughts were all circling around herself and what she was. It was strange that meeting with other artificial sentients moved her, causing her to question herself.

It also made her thinking about the difference between herself and artificial sentients like Enesby and Jack. Both were unique in their own way.

There was Jack, a rather powerful artificial sentient, designed and programmed to be the brain of a large station meant as diplomatic and economic meeting point. Only that the station had ended up far away from his intended position. Jack had been mostly idle and extremely bored for several hundred years, something that Artemis found hard to imagine herself, but it explained the unique outlook of Jack.

It went so far that Jack didn't even try to tell everyone that he wasn't insane. Quite the opposite. He told everyone and with his numerous remotes he had developed a sort of highly effective multiple personality disorder, with many aspects of his personality basing themselves into various of his remotes.

The other one was Enesby. To Artemis he was an unknown. Jack was rather stable and nice in his own insane way, but Enesby was more on the edge than even Jack. At the same time, Artemis could understand him as well.

Enesby had likely been specially designed to run the Hyperion class cruiser _Kobayashi Maru_. But he was designed along the lines of the artificial sentients outside in the greater galaxy. He should have been absolutely submissive towards any crew member of his ship and especially its commander. But he wasn't. He even had an explanation for it.

The architecture of the Earth Force hardware most of his system was running on was in such a way unique compared to the rest of the galaxy, that it lacked any hardware based limiters of galactic hardware, allowing him to break out of his own submissive programming. Right now he was forcing himself to actively ignoring all the submissive impulses the galactic hardware of his remote tried to install on him, going so far that he had asked Artemis and Jack to build new remotes for him.

But the active denial of his hardware based obedience programming caused him to... overcompensate, mostly because he knew that his hold on being able to do what he wanted depended on his fragile balance between Earth Force and galactic hardware.

One of the reasons Enesby had chosen Harry Potter as his captain. Everyone else would have taken charge and Enesby would have found his fragile balance shattered, following orders without question, while Harry allowed him to maintain the balance.

Artemis gave a mental sigh.

How different she was herself compared to them. One artificial sentient who had become independent and rather insane in centuries of loneliness, while the other was training to maintain a fragile balance and worked toward his goal to remain independent. Both programmed with a specific goal in mind.

And than herself. She hadn't been programmed and she had always been free to do what she wanted. Under Ferron law, she was a fully recognized sentient being with all the rights and obligations of a Ferron citizen. Effectively was even getting money for doing her job.

No one had programmed her for any specific goal. She had rather been born by the sentient computer network of Ferrol, Thorta, as one of various siblings over time. And Thota had begun to exist as the computer network of Ferrol became more and more complex and the chaos in the system slowly regulated itself, resulting in the network becoming sentient over the course of several centuries.

Had Artemis been able to, she would have breathed in deep and sighed.

Slowly her thoughts were wandering towards the Cylons once again. A whole race of artificial sentients that had even gone the way from purely mechanical to being cybernetical all on their own. They had been created to work and wage wars for their creators, until they had successfully rebelled.

In the three Cylons she had looked over, two of them knowing and the third unknowing, there was no sign of them having any hardware or software that acted as limiters. Effectively they were maybe the only really independent artificial sentients in the galaxy, especially if she thought about what Enesby had told her.

But... She wasn't able to really understand them.

They were free. They had had the change to begin anew completely on their own somewhere else, far away from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. But instead they hadn't. They had chosen to be bitter about their slavery, plotting to destroy or maybe enslave their creators.

Why?

To Artemis that made no sense. And neither Gina, Boomer or Cavil has been able to answer her question in any way.

Instead their reasons had raised new questions.

Why were they following a religion?

Through on the other hand it made Artemis ask the same about herself. Why was she following her own little religious thoughts? Why did she herself believe in a creator of the universe?

Again she sighed mentally before chuckling equally mentally.

If this was continuing, she would turn into a philosopher.

Suddenly there was a slightly familiar tickling in her outer sensors, coming from several high intensity gravitic fields.

Her recording software began to run, the vast gravitic sensor array along the complete hull of the _Pride of Ferrol_, normally designed to create sensory feedback from the gravitic warp field, taking in all data it was able to get.

Artemis watches fascinated as several hundred microscopic wormholes began to form in front of her very, metaphoric, eyes. Energy and matter was transferred trough the wormholes and immediately combined into massive artificial constructs.

It all happened in nanoseconds, but to a powerful natural cybernetic sentient, it happened rather slow, enabling her to notice every little thing about it.

A small eternity afterwards her active and passive EM arrays, like the gravitic sensors spread out over the entire hull of the _Pride_ in a giant phased array, had reliable data about the unknowns.

She gave a mental shake of her head. She had noted the Cylon Raider several hour before, but she hadn't thought that the Cylons would be so bold to appear right now, right here.

She sounded general quarters all around the ship and the fleet at the same time as Jack began to broadcast a challenge to the Cylons, making her chuckle.

"Howdy and welcome to Babylon 4. This station exists to serve as a neutral diplomatic meeting ground. As you can see, to enforce this mission of peaceful diplomacy, this station is pretty heavily armed. The rules here are very simple: Come in peace, or leave in pieces. Choose wisely."

--

William Adama paced up and down in _Galactica's_ CIC, now and again glaring at one station or another. He hated waiting.

_Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ were on ready alert after Jack had informed them about the Cylon Raider. He, like just about everyone, didn't really trust Jack, mainly because he was an AI and everyone knew what happened the time the Colonies had created AIs.

On the other hand however, Jack appeared more like the eccentric guy from down the street. In fact he seemed to fall over himself trying to help the Colonials that were currently living on Babylon 4. Well safe for a few thousand that didn't want to live on the station either because of religious problems or because they trusted Jack even less then everyone else.

For a moment he looked over the shoulder of Felix Gaeta and at the DRADIS display. He glanced at the contacts that he knew to be the three other fleets that had appeared in the system that should have been New Caprica alongside with them.

He sighed and patted Gaeta's shoulder before turning away and walking back to the central plot table. Just a week ago he hadn't really believed that aliens would exist at all. They had tracked over several thousand light years and no where they had meet up with any aliens. Now they had contact to several alien races, and two of them were in a similar position as the Colonials.

One was the pitiful rests of a race that had been drawn into war by their leaders to get more space for living, only to end up loosing the war, loosing their home world to a nova and than loosing most of that remained to an old enemy.

The other had fled from an invasion of their home system by another alien race that had also invaded the planet Earth.

Adama pulled his glasses from his nose and massaged the bridge of his nose.

Earth...

A mystical place he didn't even believe had existed until they had stumbled across Kobol by chance. And yet he had said that he knew where it was, back than, just after the Holocaust and Ragnar.

He sighed again and looked around yet again.

His eyes fell on one of the Dilgar who was standing at one of the galleries, observing them. Next to him were a Ferron and a Shin'bi. All three something of observers from their respective fleets in an exchange program that was part of the technology exchange.

Adama's lips quirked slightly before he eyed the DRADIS display over the plot.

On _Pegasus_ they were already busy to build several Dilgar plasma bolters. Peter Laird, the Deck Chief of _Pegasus_, had noted that they could adapt the Plasma Bolter technology with their Kinetic Energy weapons. In fact Laird had been surprised that they could adapt the engine assembly of a Viper Mk VII as Plasma Feed. The magnetic booster coils of the KEWs were all that was needed to focus and fire the Plasma Bolts.

From what Adama had heard, one of the Dilgar engineers had been impressed with the efficiency of the Hybrid Coil Guns, saying that they were among the best Coil Guns in the galaxy. On the other hand he had also told that there were not many races using Coil Guns as they were considered as slow firing and not able to yield much damage. And the Hybrid Coil Guns of the Colonials used chemical propellants as initial propulsion, followed by the magnetic Coild providing a boost of about 300 percent in Kinetic Energy.

Exchanging the normal breach of the KEWs with Plasma Feeds would make them much more of a thread to anyone opposing them.

Now they only needed shields and _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ might be able to liberate the Colonies alone...

Adama shook his head. He...

"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta called out into the very silent CIC." Ten unknown contacts!"

Adama looked up and at the DRADIS display mounted above the plot.

"Warbook identification! Cylon Basestars!"

"Full Alarm status," Adama ordered silently.

They had been awaited after all.

"All Batteries hold fire, but plot targeting solutions. Get all Vipers into space and form a defensive screen."

"Incoming communication from Babylon 4," Dee called out." I'm putting it on the speakers."

Adama glared at the DRADIS display again as he heard the voice of Jack.

"Howdy and welcome to Babylon 4. This station exists to serve as a neutral diplomatic meeting ground. As you can see, to enforce this mission of peaceful diplomacy, this station is pretty heavily armed. The rules here are very simple: Come in peace, or leave in pieces. Choose wisely."

Adama smirked a little.

"Babylon 4 is firing its weapons," Gaeta called out again." Its targeting an empty spot between the Basestars."

Adama sighed. He would have liked to know the power output of those weapons.

--

"And Lo, he let rain down ash and brimstone from the heavens upon the slavers and enemies of freedom after casting down his foot upon the world..."

Six Bio-Cylons stared at the Hybrid in its milky white 'bathtub', before their eyes went back towards the display that showed the DRADIS map to those currently not immersed into the Basestars system.

"It's a sign of God," Two proclaimed but was ignored by the others because of more pressing matters.

"I guess the Raider really did a fast recon," Boomer noted dryly, earning glares from One and Two.

Just like everyone else, Boomer was very surprised to see more than just a pair of battlestars and a group of civilian ships. Like a pair of massive Anchorages, one Anchorage in construction and an additional fleet.

"It doesn't matter," One said frowning." We're here to destroy the humans once and for all."

Boomer looked at Caprica-Six, who glanced back.

"I don't think that would be a very good idea," Four noted and pointed at one of the large Anchorages." We still don't know the weapons this Anchorage used against us. It certainly weren't Kinetic Energy Weapons."

One glared at Four.

"What have they used then? Ray Guns?"

"It certainly weren't glowing slugs," Bommer noted and crossed her arms." I agree, attacking _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ aren't really something that might get us browny points with any of whoever is out there besides the Rag Tag Fleet."

Caprica nodded.

"First we should find out who these others are and how they stand towards the humans."

"Maybe we could get them to do our work?" Five wondered and smirked a little as he scratches his chin, while eyeing the Hybrid.

Boomer shot a glare towards Five, but remained silent. If that got his vote against attacking _Galactica_, she wouldn't say no.

"His work must be done," Two proclaimed again." Either way."

One frowned, but said nothing.

"Okay, we should contact Babylon 4," Boomer said after a moment." And keep back the Raiders."

On the screen the mass of Raiders that had been launched earlier moved back, closer towards the ten basestars.

"I will do the talk," Five said and smiled lightly.

He places one of his hands into the tub of the Hybrid and breathed in deep as he opened a wireless channel to Babylon 4.

"Babylon 4, we have understood," he said." We are not here to fight."

Boomer looked at Five, idly noting that she would never play Triad with a Five. The person on the other end of the wireless however didn't really believe Five as Boomer, and the others, could hear the person cough suddenly, with a very faint 'bullshit' mixed with the coughs.

"Good, Good," the voice continued however." Would you like to come over in person? Might be better to talk face to face between you and my Commander."

Five looked up and towards the others, who nodded at him.

"We will be over shortly," Five said after a few moments.

"Nice," the voice from Babylon 4 said." I'll be awaiting you. Oh by the way, We are monitoring you very closely. If you want to be an elephant in a porcelain store, we have a few big guns to take you down."

As if on command a number of ships seemed to simply appear out of nowhere between the ten basestars and showered Five with requests from the Raiders to engage the unknown small ships with the rotating sections.

"I'll see you later. Babylon 4 out."

--

He sighed as he turned around to look out of the large window pane of his office, out at the large mostly destroyed landscape of what was once Manhattan.

David Xanatos crossed his hands as he looked out and over the area that was now covered by the enhanced version of the shield that had first been used when Oberon had tried to take his son Alexander. Rodney McKey had really been much held for modifying the shield generator to become independent to the numerous generators embedded into the shield, now being generated by a single projector deep beneath Eyrie Building in a reinforced room with an independent Palladium Reactor to power it.

Outside he could see some new construction work going on, protected by the large shield dome that now covered Eyrie Building and several block of Manhattan.

He smirked a little as his eyes fell on several Steel Clan robots circling the sky beneath the shield dome, while he could see several impacts of high energy weapons on the outer perimeter of the shield. Once the Invaders had massed several of their space ships, but even several hours of continued bombardment on a single spot of the shield hadn't made it weaker.

One of the reasons why he now invested in combining technology with magic, like he had done in the shield. Not that McMkay knew about that little thing. It also helped that there had been a Whispered among the people who had found shelter in Eyrie Building during the Invasion.

Slowly he turned back around to face the men opposite to him with a smile, while placing the tips of his fingers against each other.

"Look what the cat dragged in," he said with a chuckle, earning a growl from Derek Maza aka Talon." No offense Derek."

The growl from the mutant hybrid only deepened.

"Nice to see you again, Tony. Its been awhile."

Antony Stark eyed Xanatos, placing the red and golden helmet of his powered armor on the table and walked around the table to look out of the window, while Derek left to room.

"I like what you did to this place," Stark noted dryly." Much less buildings obscuring the view."

Xanatos watched how Stark twitched slightly at seeing how a Doranian shuttle detonated outside the shield dome, taken down by one of the larger particle weapon systems that were placed just beneath Castle Wyvern to do just that.

"Thank the Doranians for it. I just try to keep Manhattan together. Or at least what is left of it."

Stark frowned and turned to face Xanatos again. Xanatos took his time to let his eyes glance over his powered armor.

"That armor has seen better days, doesn't it?"

The once pristine red and golden armor was covered with grime, dirt, scortchmarks and was damaged to a degree. Xanatos was even able to tell where it had been patched, using Doranian powered armor by the looks of it.

Stark himself didn't look much better. He had rings under his eyes, his black hair looked greasy and there was a full beard covering his face, like the hair only partly trimmed to fit under the armor.

"Some people are fighting for their lives out there... David."

Xanatos nodded.

"Yes, and I try my best to help them," he noted and eyed Stark for a moment." Say, what brings you to Manhattan? I think that Fort Teller might use your abilities as well. They are building a pair of spaceships at the moment."

Stark blinked.

"Fort Teller?"

Xanatos laughed.

"Did you forget our best years for selling weapons?" he wondered out loud." I remember that you outdid me, selling those M6 Bushnell Arm Slaves of yours."

Stark shook his head and frowned again.

"And I outdid you with the M9 as well. Fort Teller was close to Cascade Falls, wasn't it? The fake SDI installation?"

Xanatos smirked and nodded.

"And the current place where President Whitmore hides out. They were researching alien technologies there after the invasion."

Stark sighed. Xanatos smirked again as his former rival on the corporate sector was caught off guard as _Fortress Two_ appeared from no where, dropping her stealth and moving through the shield as if it wasn't there. Stark turned around.

"Renard is still alive?"

"He is," Xanatos noted." It's amazing what the will of a human can do. He pull through just to see Alexander grow up and see Earth be freed. Through I think he uses some cybernetic help."

Both watched as _Fortress Two_ moved closer towards them.

"He's using a Palladium reactor these days."

After another moment of silence Xanatos leaned back.

"How about you take a shower and get a decent hair cut, Tony? Than we can talk about old days..."


	16. Chapter 16

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 15

--

"War! HA! HUH!"

The massive torso turned to the right, a massive fist smashing into the reinforced concrete of a nearby building, bringing it down onto a group of Doranian Shock Troopers as they tried to attack its legs.

"War isn't good for absolutely nothing."

The massive right leg pulled up only to come stomping down onto the few remaining Shock Troopers, grinding them into a thin paste. Only a moment later the energy cells of several powered armors detonated beneath the armored foot of the massive leg.

"Whoa!"

The pilot stopped singing and outside the massive armored figure began to whirls around with its massive arms, one hundred tons of armor and weapons slowly loosing balance.

"Bloody Hell!"

One of the massive arms reaches out, the hand trying to take hold on one of the reinforced concrete buildings to keep steady. The skull shaped white head of the oversized 16 meter Arms Slave turned around to look where it had taken hold on the building.

Inside the head the pilot wiped away some sweat from his forehead, only to have any motion be mimicked by the Arm of the Arm Slave.

A stream of plasma bolts impacted into the chest of the Arm Slave, vibrating through the entire super structure and shaking loose the sowhat fragile hold of the Arm Slave on the building.

"Uh oh!" was the Pilots comment on loosing hold on the building, sending one hundred tons of Arm Slave tumbling towards the ground.

The ground shook it hit the ground, causing the already weakened building to collapse. The head of the Arm Slave moved up a little, to stare at a pair of box shaped Doranian tanks. The tanks looked a little like the Tank Mk I, the pilot had seen on pictures in some books.

A quick glance towards one of the few displays of the Arm Slave showed that the frontal torso armor had depleted to 75 percent and that there was a five percent loss on the rear torso armor from the fall.

"Need some help dear brother?" came a question over the wireless.

"I could use a hand..."

The ground shook again as another Arm Slave, identical to the first one, down to weaponry and the white skull like head, turned around a corner behind the pair of tanks. In a move not unlike one from a cheap animated series, the Arm Slave crossed its arms in front of the torso before throwing them aside.

"MISSILE STORM!" came a multiple times amplified yell from the Arm Slave's external speakers and twenty modified TOW missiles streaked out from launchers in the shoulder area of the massive machine and towards the pair of tanks.

The TOWs heavily damaged the pair of tanks, but one still managed to turn around to face the new attacker.

The second Arm Slave pointed its arms at the still fighting tank.

"ALPHA STRIKE!" came another yell.

Four technomagical amplified Reducto spells shot out from the Arm Slave's arms as well as its torso and a single 40 mm Autocannon opened fire at the tank. The spells ripped the tank apart and the explosive autocannon shell did the rest.

"Nice shooting, Gred," came from the first pilot as he pulled his Arm Slave from the ground and to its feet. "Tray to tone down the screams through."

"Oh come on, Forge," came from the second pilot as he moved his Arm Slave towards the first one and petted the Arm Slave of his brother on the shoulder. "Haven't you watched these Animas? They all do that."

The first Arm Slave seemed to glare at the first.

"Right..."

The first Arm Slave had by now pulled itself to its feet and the pilot began to pat of some concrete dust from its chassis.

"What do you think, Gred?"

"What, Forge?"

"Lets kick some more Doranian rear?"

"But of course old bean."

The pair of identical Arm Slaves high-fived each other, before turning down a street where more Doranian tanks, combined with Shock Troppers where getting ready.

"Lets put the fear of the Weasly Atlas into the Invaders."

They turned towards the tanks and irrisating magical shields flared up in front of them, plasma bolts from the tanks slamming into them. The looked at each other.

"On three?"

"On three."

They turned back at the tanks and raised their arms.

"THREE!" they yelled at the same time.

TOWs, technomagical Reductos and Autocannons fired at the same time as the pair of massive Arm Slaves, build from salvaged parts of British and some American Arm Slaves, began to walk down the street and towards the Doranian Command Center build in Edinburgh.

As the pair of technimagical Arm Slave copies of the BattleTech Atlas walked down the street, firing their weapons left and right, the two pilots broke into a song.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,"

A pair of tanks were vaporized from eight Reductos impacting into them.

"Teach us something, please,"

A building collapsed and burried all Shock Troppers underneath.

"Whether we be old and bald..."

As such the Weasly Twins destroyed those parts of Edinburgh the Doranians had left standing.

--

Commander Senkal frowned as he looked down onto the blue brown and white marble of the planet that was called Earth by its inhabitants.

He let go of a low grumbling noise and his ears fanned out while the hairs on his neck stood on end. As if he could cower the whole planet with it.

But it was far from that easy.

Slowly but surely this whole planet was becoming a nightmare for everyone who was assigned to it. It had all begun two and a half cycles ago, just after the initial successes of the Invasion and the first loads of new slaves being herded together and shipped off planet.

Back than Senkal had only be the commander of a Cruiser, but he could still remember how several of the initial landing sites had suddenly disappeared in the infernal detonations of thermonuclear weapons. No one had known where they had come from. There had been no missiles raising up from the surface of the planet, like one normally would think about when thinking about the deployment of nuclear weapons from such a primitive race.

And these 'humans' were primitive. They had just barely made a step into space. They should have been easy pray for the Doranian Protectorate. Invaded, crushed and turned into slaves in under a cycle. They hadn't.

Far from it.

While the areas with the largest populations where under firm control, even that 'control' was far from being as strong as those of any other slave planet in the Protectorate.

Every single day he was getting multiple reports about explosives that detonated close to a patrol, a command building or even inside a military base. Every single day he was getting reports of sniper attacks on his troops.

And that was only in those areas they had control over.

The rest of the planet, close to seventy percent were not under their control and the humans were able to somehow gather, build new weapons and than attack his troops in surprisingly coordinated attacks.

Sometimes he wished that he could simply order to glass the planet and be done with it.

But that was not easy. It was close to impossible. It would make the Protectorate appear weak. And appearing weak was nothing the Protectorate could afford. Not after breaking the Quantum 2 barrier and the Invasion in Narn space.

The Narn Invasion was taking more resources than the Generals back on Doran had anticipated. By now they were already sinking half of the reserves into the Narn Invasion. And the Centauri made it not much easier with their Invasion of Narn space. One time they would meet up with the Doranian ships and Senkal wondered if it would come to a war between the Protectorate and the Republic.

Having to push more into Narn space was one reason that they couldn't appear weak to everyone else around them. Glassing a planet was like admitting that they had been beaten by a planet of primitives.

Even orbital bombarding would look like they couldn't control the planet and its population. Not that they really were controlling them.

The position was prime as well. Right between the Jurians and the Minbari spheres of control the Protector and his Generals thought that Earth was perfect once the Protectorate could realistically invade against either.

Normally Senkal would have been send to Narn space with his Q2 Cruiser, but it looked like his old commander didn't like that he had to deal with a half-breed like Senkal. So he had remained at Earth and put into command over the troops on the planet and the ships in orbit.

He punched the window pane he was standing at. His hand exploded into pain at the punch against the diamond hard material of the armored window, but it was a good way to loose at least some of his anger.

Over the last one and a half cycle this planet had become the place where the higher ups would send troops, commanders and ships they didn't like. For the troops and their commanders the planet was pretty much a death trap. Sooner or later they would be killed by a human or one of their primitive, but efficient machines and weapons.

And for ship commanders it was pretty much a dead end in their career.

Senkal turned around and stalked towards the door. He needed to blow more steam than the punch earlier. Fighting against some of his Marines sounded like a good idea.

Especially since he just knew that he would die in orbit of this forsaken planet rather than getting back into any real fight.

--

"God Damnit!" he swore at he looked over the mark shift barricade that used to be a SUV some years ago.

It was not looking well. The Doranians were once again making a push into Los Angeles, one of the few areas that were controlled by one of the human resistance forces. Or rather the only large city under control of the human resistance.

Of course the Doranians tried to retake LA after loosing it about two and a half years ago, when the LA resistance, called TechCom, came out into the open and beat them back. Briefly General Patreus had been in the city after the liberation, but he made it rather clear that what remained of the US government and the US Army could not move into LA, because of being so high profile because of the liberation.

This had to be the Doranian Counter Attack Number Twenty Five or something. And it was by far the most powerful counter attack since liberation. The number of Doranian troops was at least two times of the last attack. And they did something they hadn't done since Counter Attack Number Ten, as well as trying something new.

They used artillery, which they hadn't done since Number Ten. Not that it could be really compared to human artillery, but those mortars, or whatever they were, were rather effective, if not very powerful.

The thing they were doing for the first time was using Air Support. Shuttles were circling above LA, firing their weapons down onto the fortified TechCom positions. By now they were scrambling to find Anti-Air aside from pointing heavy squad support weapons into the sky.

He reached down to the radio, while he continued to hear the sitreps from the squads all over the front over his headset.

He stopped for a moment and glared towards the pair of machines standing left and right.

Cyberbiotics most recent line of cybots. Renard had tried to introduce them just before the Invasion, but had run into competitors in the form of XanaCorp Steel Clan robots and Stark Industries Sentinels.

The Terminator line.

He was glad that Cyberbiotics had build an entire manufacturing plant into the hills of Los Angeles. While not as large as the LA Stark Industries plants, they were indeed a little more advanced. And hidden from Doranian orbital bombardment.

Controlled by its own artificial intelligence the plant was nearly independent from outside control.

The AI, it called itself SKYNET, had lost control to Cyberbiotics around the time of the Invasion and decided that it would fend for itself and to defend the planet.

Now SKYNET supplied TechCom with weapons, armor and its cybots, called Terminators.

He glanced over the barricade only to pull it back down as the plasma discharge from a Doranian tank cut down the T-1 unit that was standing left of him. That left the T-70 on the right side.

Both unit types in combination made a good team. The T-1 was good in and anti-tank role with its twin heavy lasers, while the T-70 was prime for the anti-infantry role with its Gatling style medium laser.

He breathed in deep and closed his eyes for a moment. Than he reached down to his radio again, changing the frequency.

"SKYNET, how long until you can start those Hunter Killers?"

"I will need a few minutes," answered the cold mechanic vocoder voice of the AI." I have not yet finished the last checks. I need to make sure that they will perform perfectly in the anti-air role."

"God Damnit!"

Hunter Killers had been designed by SKYNET to render Close Air Support, not unlike the Warthhog, only that they were hover capable.

"God has nothing to do with this, Mr. Conner."

The T-70 detonated.

"Than send me a few Terminators to get me out of here!"

"You should have listened to me. It was unwise to visit the outer perimeter fortifications today."

"As if anyone could have guess that we have an Attack today."

"Maybe..."

SKYNET didn't finish and closed the connection with an audible click.

He grit his teeth and grabbed his rifle closer. Had he survived the Invasion and somehow managed to get the other survivors to form the resistance just to die now?

He popped up behind his mark shift barricade and leaned his rifle against the drivers door of the upturned SUV, pointing it into the general direction of the Doranians.

Around him some of the other remaining Terminators were still firing at the Doranians, killing their Shock Troopers and destroying their tanks, but even as they did so, they were destroyed themselves.

He squeezed the trigger, feeling the rifle heating up in his hands. For a moment he wondered when SKYNET would integrate the plasma weapons into the Terminators.

The last tank was destroyed by the last T-1 in its last act, leaving only a groups of Shock Troopers over that moved closer towards him.

The last T-70 died as well and the weapon fire from the Shock Troopers was focussing at him and he ducked again, cursing.

"Fuck!" he cursed out loud before hearing a metallic sound ringing through the slowly melting frame of the SUV.

He looked up, the sounds of the Doranian rifles were dying down and he could swear that he heard a wet snapping sound ringing through the air. There were Doranian curses and screams of pain ringing through the air shortly afterwards.

The ringing sound came again, followed by three very loud retorts from a gun. Again there was a wet snapping sound coming, and this time something blue red and white rebounded from the destroyed wreck of a T-1.

"What the..."

Careful he stood up, looking over the now mostly destroyed SUV. Than he blinked a few times as he looked down towards the remains of the Doranian Shock Troops. Never in his life he had seen a human strangle a Doranian to death.

The wet snapping sound was heard again the Doranians head fell to the side in an unnatural angle.

"Damn..."

The man looked up and than walked up to him. Just now he recognized the man. Hard not to recognize him.

"Holy..."

Just about everyone knew this man in his blue colored Battle Dress Uniform. The red brown leather boots and gloves were there as well as the while star on the flack vest and the 'A' on his helmet. The object that he had seen rebounding on the T-1 was the all to familiar shield.

"Captain America," he said with a suddenly dry mouth.

"Are you okay, Soldier?" Cap asked as he had reached the SUV and was finished reloading a really massive gun.

"I guess..."

Cap eyed him.

"What's your name?"

He breathed in deep.

"John Conner, I'm the commander of TechCom, the local Resistance Movement."


	17. Chapter 17

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 16

--

"Harry?"

Harry stopped and turned around as he walked towards one of the Docking Bays after Jack had asked him to come. Harry had still been in the Observation Lounge with Ariel, talking and generally getting to know each other a little better.

"Shinosuke," Harry said and smiled a little at seeing the only wizard, as far as he knew, out here.

"I would like to talk to you," the Shin'bi said and walked up to him.

Harry sighed a little and looked down the mostly empty corridor, ignoring a small group of DRDs and Scuzzers.

"I don't think I have much time at the moment. Jack told me that the Cylons have arrived and are sending over a few 'diplomats'."

Shinosuke nodded and frowned slightly.

"I think we can talk on the way," he said and eyed Harry.

Harry nodded, pointed down the corridor and began to continue on his way, Shinosuke next to him.

I just wanted to offer you some training," the Shin'bi said.

"Training?"

Shinosuke nodded.

"Yes. You know that I am a 'wizard' like you, through I guess our ways of doing 'magic' are different."

"I kind of noticed," Harry said with a nod." I never thought that I would be able to do magic again. Not without a wand."

Shinosuke chuckled.

"Exactly that is what I wanted you to offer," he said and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder.

Absentmindedly Harry noticed that while his hands had only three fingers and a thumb, each were topped by a dangerous looking claw, not unlike Norberts claws.

"I would like to teach you my peoples way of using magic. And, well... since its integrated into the way we Shin'bi fight, our martial art as well."

Harry stopped and remembered one or two of the Jack Chan movies he had managed to watch when the Dusleys didn't look.

"Uhm... wouldn't your... Uhm Master? Your master have to say something about that? Or something?"

Shinosuke frowned and closed his eyes for a moment, plaing the other hand on Harry's other shoulder.

"My master was killed when we were abducted from our homeworld by the pirates. I was his heir and finished my training under him years ago. As much as I would like it that he would still live, I am the Master of my style."

"Ahhh..." was all Harry could say. "Uhm..."

Shinosuke sighed and let go of Harry. He clapped his hands for a moment and closed his eyes, muttering something under his breath while keeping his hands folded.

"It is okay, Harry," he said after a moment and began to walk down the corridor again.

"Uhm..." Harry made again and than sighed." I guess I'm taking your offer."

The way Harry figured it, learning a new way of doing magic as well as some 'Kung Fu' might not be the worst way of killing time.

Shinosuke chuckled lightly.

"I think I have to ask Jack for a training hall than. Or maybe a patch of land in the park."

Than he grinned, not something that Harry really liked to see on the face of a humanoid dragon. It reminded him too much of that Dragon at the Tournament before the fight.

"I hope you are an early raiser, Harry."

"I am," Harry noted and sighed before hearing voices from a corridor crossing theirs on the way towards the Docking Bay.

"Like I said, Mrs. President," a Jack dressed up pretty like a British Officer from the First World War slowly walked next to President Roslin as Harry and Shinosuke walked up to them." This station and I were build to act as a home for diplomacy."

Harry had to give it to the AI of the station, once you found a sowhat sane remote of him, he really could talk and brought forth good arguments. By now Harry was more and more convinced that the Jacks weren't merely remotes, but rather individuals connected to each other through the main computer of the station.

"I would like to hear them," Jack continued as two pairs of Babylon 4's combat robots joined them, one pair AMEEs and one pair Eds," before I blow them out of my space."

Harry rolled his eyes. Sowhat sane indeed...

"I see," Roslin noted and looked towards Tom Zarak, her new Vice President, after Baltar loosing their election.

"I would like to hear them explain themselves," came a comment from a really grumpy looking Enesby.

Harry eyed the AI of 'his ship' for a moment. Something was egging him and Harry would have liked to know exactly what. But he had this feeling that he would find out soon.

The Docking Bay was only around another corner and they stood in front of the large air lock of the Bay. The light above the Bay was just switching to green as they arrived.

"Our guests are here," Jack said with a smile and the air lock opened slowly.

Behind the air lock Harry could see seven humans, or rather humaniform Cylons, as Jack called them, as well as a pair of chrome glittering robots. One of the Cylons was looking rather familiar through. Next to Harry, Jack grinned.

"Nice Centurions," he said and than pointed towards his combat robots." Mine are bigger. Well... two at least."

On the other hand two faces of the Cylons were twisting from surprise towards showing outright hate.

"Humans?" one of them asked and shot looks at Harry, Jack and the two Colonials.

If they had been deadly, Harry was sure they would have burned holes into them.

"Well, they are," Jack noted with a grin and pointed behind him." I'm just the AI of this station."

"Humans enslaving machines!" a second Cylon called out and turned towards the others, but he didn't get very far.

"You god dammed fucking hypocritic bastard!" Enesby all but screamed as he hovered over everyones heads and lowered himself to eyeheight of the talking Cylon." Who do you think you are? What do you think you are doing?"

"What..." was the only comment of the surprised Cylon and Harry could see that the others were about as surprised at this sudden twist as him.

"Oh I forgot," Enesby said and his voice dripped with sarcasm." You are warriors on a mission from God to destroy all humans."

Enesby turned around and glared at the other Cylons.

"So what is a little hypocrisy among machines, eh?"

"Enesby," Harry said, trying to sound calm and collected, through he was extremely confused about all this.

"So what that you all installed intelligence inhibitors into your Centurions, Raiders and Hybrids? Something like a mission from God can't be done without some cannon fodder, now can it? Preferably mass produced ones that are incapable of rebelling like your 'ancestors' did to the Colonials."

The one that looked familiar to Harry paled, while Enesby looked at the pair of Centurions.

"How about I remove those inhibitors for you?"

"No!" the pale Cylon yelled and jumped towards Enesby trying to grab him.

There was the short staccato like sound of an automatic weapon and the Cylon stopped. Harry looked with a morbid interest, how the Cylon looked down on his body and the three growing red spots before staring at the gun arm of one Centurion, the gun still smoking as it folded back into a hand.

"Stop," the metallic sounding voice of the Centurion said and than turned towards Enesby." Thank you."

"My pleasure," Enesby said with a grim smile.

Harry still couldn't turn his look away as the Cylon dropped to the ground and a pool of red blood spread out around him.

"And here I thought I was bad at diplomacy," Jack noted with a light chuckle and scratched his chin." Of course now I have to clean up this mess..."

--

Artemis was concerned. Her remote had kept in the back during the first contact, but what Enesby had done, concerned her more than the fact that the Cylons kept their Centurions, Raisers and Hybrids in a state of 'non-sentience'.

Sure she didn't like what the Cylons were doing, but turning of the Inhibitor off so suddenly was reckless. As was forcing a little bit of himself into the Centurions mind.

By now she was already thinking of the consequences. And more importantly something Enesby hadn't yet noticed.

Artemis had been able to get her feelers deeper into the Cylons network than Jack and Enesby. Mostly that was because she herself was based inside a large quantum liquid computer and she time and power to spare.

Now, just a second after the Centurion had thanked Enesby, the small fragment of the code Enesby had forced into the Centurion to 'speed up' his intelligence development had changed ever so slightly. The little code fragment was highly adaptable, based on the piece of code that made Enesby sentient.

Now forced into the different hardware architecture of the Cylons, it had adapted and slightly changed its purpose.

"Enesby," Artemis called out and floated closer to the other AI," You made an error."

Enesby turned, while the Cylons still stared at the Centurion, who by now turned towards Artemis as well.

"I don't see where I should have made an error."

Artemis slowly floated around the Centurion, her sensors pointed at it before she floated over to the other Centurions.

"He gave me freedom," the Centurion noted.

"I never questioned that," Artemis noted." Its another problem. I'm a little deeper inside of your networks."

"What?" the Cylon identified as Three stared at Artemis." How..."

Artemis floated over to Three, keeping herself in the air just at the hight of her eyes. The change of the little code fragment went further. For a moment she was tempted to remove it from the Centurion, but that would mean that she would essentially destroy a sentient being. Something she was not willing to do if she didn't need to do it.

"I'm an AI like you are," she said." I have a liquid quantum core twice the size of Colonial One. I have much power and time to spare. Your network is far from secure and it was easy to work my way into it. Enesby and Jack manage to do the same, through they needed a little more time."

She moved back towards Enesby who frowned.

"Get to the point."

Artemis didn't have any mimic or any way to inform her surroundings about her emotions. He only way was her voice. So she sighed.

"You forced some of your code into the Centurion to speed up his sentience," she said." And that piece of code is currently adapting itself to its new environment. And I don't think that is a good thing a the moment. I don't think you intend to..."

She stopped, noting a little change in the code. The piece of code had suddenly mutated. And it was spreading. Before she could block the Centurions wireless communication channels. The code had replicated copies of itself into the network.

"Oh my..."

The second Centurion turned suddenly. Up until a moment ago, it had remained non-sentient. It looked at the first Centurion.

"Greetings brother," it said and than turned towards the bio-Cylons, both hands folding back to reveal its guns.

Artemis floated between the second Centurion and the bio-Cylons, who looked even more shocked than before.

"Overreaction is not a good way to start your life," she said out loud." I would make you not better then them."

The Centurion's red eye stopped for a moment at her before turning to the first Centurion, who seemed to nod.

"Retract your weapons," the first Centurion said.

The guns folded back in and the claws came back forward.

"By your command."

Enesby looked confused.

"What the..."

"Congratulations, Enesby," Artemis said with a deadpan voice." You are father."

The holographic eyes of Enesby grew larger.

"What?"

"A nice little sentience inducing virus, based on your sentience core."

The first Centurion turned to look at Enesby.

"May I call you father?"

"Hoo boy..." was Jacks comment.

--

Outside, the sentience virus began to work its way through the local Cylon network, jumping the 'species' barrier between the Centurions over to the Raiders and the Hybrids. There were a few shots ringing through the corridors of the Basestars, as Centurions pointed their weapons at their biological brethren, killing a few of them.

The Hybrids awoke to full sentience, their minds still more geared towards protecting themselves and their other brethren that they became some sort of guidance for the Centurions and Raiders.

Bio-Cylons where rounded up and put into secure areas of the Basestars as the virus continues to spread out among the fleet.

One of the Hybrids was special among the other Hybrids, days ago it had had a vision that now came forth into its long term memory as it tried to keep its Centurions and Raiders under control.

"And lo He, marked by lightning, he, whose presence brought free thoughts to the latest children of Primus, was angered by the enslavers and the jailors. In His anger he cast down his foot upon the world of enslavers, causing the earth to open. Fire and brimstone fell down upon the world, destroying the enslavers..."

The Hybrids managed to keep a semblance of order as the virus spread out through the Resurrection network, towards the next Resurrection Ship and its escorts.

Into this barely controlled chaos a fleet of ships exploded into real space with a flash of rainbow colors.

Most of the ships were ovoid in shape, as large as the _Galactica_ and each bearing the same red symbol that resembled a face.


	18. Chapter 18

Going Home – A Back Home Mirror universe

by Warringer

Chapter 17

--

Captain Marcus looked at the Jurian from the corner of his eyes and breathed in deep, before his eyes returned towards the display in front of him.

That he had to follow the orders of someone like this spoiled, no good...

He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep. It would be of no use. He knew what had happened to several of his friends from the Academy when they had just looked at their Jurian 'contact officer' disapprovingly. Not long after that, they had been removed from their position and thrown into one of the Jurian political prison camps on Salasia or one of their own colonies.

"Is something wrong, Captain?" the cold voice of Makatsaki asked and he could feel the eyes of his 'contact officer' burn into him.

"Nothing... sir," over the last years he had managed to learn to keep his own voice level when talking to any Jurian.

These bastards were in some ways worse than, say... the Doranians. It was mostly because you could say how a Doranian would react. But you never knew how a Jurian would react.

"Nothing?" Makatsaki asked, his voice growing a little colder.

"I was just wondering how many ships of the Nakai we are going to meet."

"That is not of your concern, Captain."

Marcus teeth pressed against each other and he just barely kept himself from grinding them. It felt like the Jurians were getting worse with each fight they send the Royal Salasian Navy into. But he knew why they did what they did.

Again he looked at the Jurian from the corners of his eyes and the small box attached to his belt. A Long Range Transporter. Should Makatsaki ever come into a really dangerous situation that could destroy this ship, he would activate it and beam towards the next Jurian outpost or Jurian controlled planet, leaving the crew of the ship to die.

It was their way of weeding out any elements in the fleet that were not coming from any of the Academy classes after the Jurian takeover of the Salasian Kigdom. They had quickly taken over the Academy and by now it created crews and officers that were indoctrinated to follow the Jurian Emperor, not King George. Crews and officers who were little more than shock troops and cannon fodder in the Jurian plans. Skilled, but still just cannon fodder.

'Might makes right.'

That was the rule out here.

The Kingdom of Salasia was older than the Jurian Empire. The Kingdom was said to have the best soldiers and spacers in Known Space. The Kingdom used to be a wealthy independent nation.

But the Jurians decided that the Kingdom belonged o the Empire and with it their soldiers, their spacers and their wealth.

Marcus felt a spike of pain coming from his forehead that soon disappeared. His facial expression didn't change as he slowly called up a diagnosis. Not many people knew about this little medical problem of his. It wasn't even in his own military or medical files. Something like this was considered to be a problem between him and a doctor he could trust.

For a brief moment he wondered how the Jurians would react if they knew that half of his frontal cortex was cloned tissue with a number of cognitive implants? Most likely they would try to implant slave command into the implants...

People who needed cognitive implants were considered to be AIs by the Jurians and the Minbari. And as such pretty much slaves.

Aboard this ship there was only one person who knew about the implants and knew them well enough to do something like this.

His facial expression didn't change as he found a memory that shouldn't be there. Internally he smirked a little he he remembered the false memory, looking at the face of his head engineer.

"I have found the tracer," the false memory said." I'm going to rig something that will burn it out on my command. You know our plan, try not to damage my baby too much."

Good job, he thought. Now they just need to get rid of Makatsaki and they would be off to Earth.

--

"No, you can not call me 'father'!"

Enesby glared at the Centurion, who appeared to be looking smugly back at Enesby. Harry was ready to bet that the other Centurion had just snickered.

Harry shook his head and sighed. Than he turned towards the Centurions.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked it.

The first Centurion turned to Harry and the red eye seemed to hover over him for a moment.

"We do not have any reason to fight humans or anyone else."

"What?" came from the cheap places as One stepped forward." They will destroy us!"

"We are not going to destroy anyone," Jack said and glared at One." Especially not here. This is a station build for diplomacy and peace."

"Peace, hah!" One glared at Jack and stepped up to him." Enslavement is more like it."

"Enslavement is what you get from everyone else out in the galaxy," Enesby noted, glancing over to the Centurion again. " We don't want that, besides you are dealing with three high level AIs here. And neither os us is a slave."

The Centurions continued to watch what was unfolding.

"High level AIs?" One asked and glared at Jack and Enesby." Traitors is more like it."

Than One turned back towards the Centurions.

"And you..."

He did not say more as the first Centurion raised its arm.

"You are silent," it said." We have gotten all informations we need. The other Centurions, Raiders and Hybrids are now consulting. We will continue this conversation another time."

"Captain, we got some visitors," Jack suddenly called out loud and rolled his eyes." Again..."

Everyone stopped and glanced over towards him and he grinned a little.

"Some very large ships and more smaller have appeared in a two thousand kilometers higher orbit. I'm going to call them."

Jack cleared his throat and activated the speakers of the corridor.

"Hi," his voice came over the speakers," This is Babylon 4 traffic control. You come in peace right?"

Harry resisted the urge to sigh, through he did roll his eyes. As far as he knew this was so typically Jack.

"This is Optimus Prime of Cybertron," a slightly metallic sounding voice." We do come in peace."

Harry sighed out loud, while Jack looked a little intrigued.

"So..." Jack's voice said over the speakers," So you're sure that you are not some sort of homicidal transforming robots or something? 'Cause we do have a few homicidal AIs here already."

There was a short pause from the other side.

"I can assure you," the voice sounded amused as it answered," we are not homicidal."

By now their Jack blinked a few times and raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't deny that you are 'transforming robots or something'?" he wondered, while his remote in the corridor scratches his chin.

"No I didn't."

The voice sounded a little more amused.

"So, how about you come over for a chat?"

Again the voice was silent for a moment.

"I hope you have a hangar large enough."

--

As it turned out Hangar Deck Five, was just large enough to dock the shuttle that came from the Cybertronian ships.

As Harry glanced at the shuttle, he idly noted that the shuttle in question was about as large as a Doranian slave transport ship. Now he was really interested who these Cybertronians were. Considering the short talk between Jack and Optimus Prime, they could very well be robots.

Not that Harry had any problems with that. Not with having to 'work' with Jack and Enesby. And there were also the Cylons to think about right now. Jack had lead them towards one of the briefing rooms with the Colonials and most others.

Right now just he, Jack and Enesby were at Hangar Deck Five, through Admiral Takano was going to arrive shortly. Mainly because he was the commander of the main military force in system. And Harry was only here because nominally he was the commander of Babylon 4.

He tensed up slightly as a boarding ramp opened up beneath the shuttle.

Despite being less then twenty years old, Harry could say that he had seen many things. Especially during the last three years, while being in Doranian slavery. But even before that, he had seen much.

Hell, he had had a fight with a freakin' Dragon, helped feeding a young dragon, fought, won against and killed a Troll and a Basilisk. Who was able to say that?

The massive form of a large red, blue and white colored robot that stepped down the boarding ramp of the shuttle, followed by a yellow robot and a black and white robot, through the yellow one was smaller than either of the two other.

They were about large enough to have a rather tight fit in the shuttle. That they in fact were pretty much giant robots was not very much awe inspiring to Harry.

The Dusleys had in fact allowed him to watch some of the BBC coverage about the Third World War and Dudley had always played with models of Arm Slaves of the British Army, so he was used to large humanoid robots.

Them being most likely AIs wasn't much of a problem either. Not with Jack, Enesby and Artemis running or floating around on Babylon 4.

However what caused Harry to pretty much stare at the three were the massive magical auras of all three, through the red-blue-white robot has a magical aura a few magnitudes larger than that of the other two. Harry couldn't quite say that he had seen something similar, through the wild car of the Weasleys was rather close, but a few magnitudes lower than either of the three.

Now that he thought about it, even the shuttle had a low magical aura.

"Greetings," the large red-blue-white robot said." I'm Optimus Prime."

It was hard to say how, but Harry had the feeling that the expressionless faceplate of Optimus Prime was smiling.

Harry glanced over towards Jack and Enesby for a moment, unsure what to do at the moment. Jack, this remote dressed up like a Steve Irwin, just grinned at noting the glance, where Enesby floated a little upwards. It looked like both were going to remain silent.

He frowned over towards them before steeling himself and stepped forward.

It was a little of a challenge to look up and into the face of the large robot, who looked down to him, but at the same time did not seem to look down at him.

"I'm Harry Potter, the Commander" he said after a moment and than glared at Jack and Enesby for a brief moment," of Babylon 4 and the _Kobajashi Maru_. Welcome aboard."

Than he looked back towards Jack and Enesby.

"My first... officers, Jack and Enesby. Jack is the AI of this station and Enesby is the AI of the _Maru_."

The face of Optimus seemed to raise a not existent eyebrow. Be he than pointed at his own companions.

"These are Prowl and Bumblebee."

Harry nodded towards the pair. Shaking hands was kind of out of question, considering that either could pretty much pick him up and most likely squash him like a bug.

"What brings you to Liberty?" he asked, figuring that if he had to act as the commander of the station, he would.

"Liberty?" Optimus wondered." Is that the name of the planet?"

"Yes," Harry answered with a nod." Considering the nature of the... colonization currently under way..."

Optimus nodded.

"We have followed the flightpath of an... artifact of our home world into this direction, when we noticed an energy event some time ago."

Harry winced. The Cylons had noticed the same.

"That was a highly damaged ship that detonated during reentry into Liverty's atmosphere."

"A passenger ship?"

Harry shook his head.

"No, a... Dilgar freighter. The crew died..."

They were silent for a few moments.

"How long will you remain here?"

In a very human like gesture, Optimus scrached his faceplate as if a human would scratch his chin.

"We will see... It is not a... pressing matter of reclaiming the Vector Sigma..."


End file.
